


Because This Is More Important Than Either Of Them

by Drakey



Series: Landscapes [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cultural Legacies, Diplomacy, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Momo With A Knife, Multi, Platonic Soulmates, Politics, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Characters, neurodivergent characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27324520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakey/pseuds/Drakey
Summary: With the death of Ozai, the war is over, but after a century of war, peace is almost gone from living memory. Now, peace must be built by those who have barely dared to imagine what it might look like.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Azula/Mai (Avatar), Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Bato/Jee/Hakoda (Avatar), Jet/Jin (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Yue (Avatar)
Series: Landscapes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871992
Comments: 90
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final part of the main series. Thank you all for being so patient with my delayed updates!

Omashu's freshly-restored king has them off the field before sunrise after the battle, and Jet does not talk about it.

The thing is, sixty three people against nearly five hundred is a very different experience from a skirmish of twelve against twenty, or three against five, or ~~a rogue terrorist against a dam.~~ Even the fight at the Earth Palace wasn't... this. Jet has burns and cuts and scrapes he doesn't remember acquiring, and the healers erase them from him and Jin, working together so nobody tries to heal the same wound at the same time, but they happened.

Jet is too busy realizing that he's never fought in a real battle before now. He doesn't have time to _talk_ about it because he's panicking.

A few short months ago, he called the little tussle in the woods with Zuko and his gang a battle. That wasn't even a raid. So Jet lets the days go by, and he sits with Jin at banquets and he listens to King Bumi tell stories about Sengge (who was apparently the type to have wild affairs everywhere he went: Jet thinks of ~~Zuko and Jin~~ Aang, and he can't really picture the Avatar being that way. It must be a Sengge thing and not an Air Nomad thing). He helps Jin and Bumi sort their treasure trove of cultural artifacts by category and how well preserved they are, and put nearly five thousand pages of the Nomad's writings in order. They receive a letter from Caldera City.

The Firelord is dead. Long live the Firelord.

They send a letter back.

Jet does not talk about it.

One night, Longshot fixes him with a pointed look, and he touches his own cheek where Jet has the scar from his long ago not-a-battle with Katara and Aang. Jet reaches up, mirroring Longshot's move. The scar is smooth and broad.

They get a letter from Ba Sing Se.

Azula has not fallen. The war is officially over, but it's going to start back up. Fire Nation imperialism still holds the core of the Earth Kingdom.

The difference between a fight and a battle is that a fight, you can control. You might lose, but you choose who to fight, and how many of them there will be. In a battle, that's out of your control. You can maneuver, and try to avoid a bad battle, and you can retreat, but battles... Well, the ~~analogy~~ distinction starts to break down a little.

And then there's the _intensity._

A fight is almost kinda fun. Fighting with Zuko was exhilarating, and it was a challenge, a puzzle. Living through a battle with Jin was a constant struggle to avoid death, half the danger not even coming from someone he could strike back against. Real battles are terrifying.

They get a letter asking them to come to the Western Air Temple. To bring the artifacts. There will be a peace conference there, hastily conducted, with luck, before Azula can start the war again.

Jet does not talk about it.

They load everything up and go out as a caravan. Princess Yue will meet them on the _Frostbite,_ and then they'll get picked up and taken across the ocean on some new Fire Nation contraption. 

They've been standing in the shadow of the turtlewhale ship for a few hours when Yue spots their ride, not in the sea, but in the air.

_Holy shit, the Battle of Omashu could have been so much worse._

Jet does not talk about it.

He ~~avoids Jin and Longshot by exploring the airship, and then, when that won't work anymore, he~~ sits out on top of the craft and looks around at the endless sky.

The clouds are different from above.

Probably the biggest difference between a battle and a fight is that sometimes, a fight can mean a lot, but a battle means so much more. A battle is a huge, important thing, and every one can change the course of a war. A battle is a string of fights, and what's happening between the fights, and what each fight will mean to the one next to it, and sometimes what one soldier says or doesn't say to another can change the whole thing, but sometimes it doesn't mean anything.

Battles are a different world, and things happen in a battle that would never happen outside of it, that would never happen in a fight.

Somewhere down below, Jin bashes her shin against something hard enough to draw blood. Jet hisses and draws up the left leg of his pants. He frowns at the wound. It's a vertical scrape, not deep, but bleeding freely because it's fairly wide. He has to wonder where that came from. He hopes she goes to the healer soon. He'll be fine, but she shouldn't be walking around on this. He considers getting up to go find her and make her go to the healer, but she'll be fine ~~and she might make him talk about it, and he didn't go to all this effort to get stuck talking about it the minute he finally finds a good hiding place.~~

Jet presses a hand to the scrape, hoping it will at least stop bleeding soon.

“Sorry,” Jin says. He looks up. She closes the distance between them and sits down.

“You scraped your leg on the ladder?” Jet says.

Jin nods. “You're avoiding me.”

“And Longshot,” Jet insists.

There's no grass to chew on up here. He should have picked a few stalks before they took off.

“I love you,” Jin says.

Jet squeezes his eyes shut. “I thought I'd been in... I didn't know what it was like until I experienced it for real. I thought... but what happened with Zuko wasn't the real thing.”

“No, it wasn't,” Jin agrees. “And the real thing is different, isn't it?”

Jet nods. “The real thing scares the shit out of me. I thought I was so fucking tough, but as soon as it's real, I feel like a complete coward.” He looks up and catches Jin's eyes, bright and greenish-brown, and she's beautiful, sure, but he's seen beautiful before. What's more important is that she's _Jin._ “I don't know how to do this,” he admits.

“I know,” she says. “Jet, I'm your soulmate. I trust you. I know you're going to get it wrong, and I know you, so I know you're going to be an asshole because you're an asshole, but I know you're going to listen to me. I know you're going to be trying for real. I will, too. I love you.”

Jet swallows. “I love you, Jin.”

She scoots over and she kisses him, gently, to explore. They have plenty of time.

“You know that fucking battle was fucking terrifying,” Jet says after a while.

“Yeah. I've been having nightmares since it happened,” Jin says. “And I thought that little dustup with the Rough Rhinos was bad.”

Jet laughs. The difference between a real battle and real love is that more battles are worse, and more love is... probably better.

~~Less lik~~ ely to involve flooding an innocent town, too.

+

Jee's first day in the Fire Nation in almost four years is spent fighting in the harbor of Caldera City. Earthbenders, waterbenders, and non-bending warriors tear the fortifications to pieces, and push hard for the city itself.

He is not the only firebender on the invading force, and he doesn't quite know how to feel about Jeong Jeong's presence. Together, they blunt every fire-based attack they face. Together, they do things to Fire Nation soldiers that turn Jee's stomach. One of the best things about bending as a fighting style is being too far away to really see the betrayed confusion in a man's eyes as he dies.

That evening, he catches the new Firelord burning the clothes he was wearing during the attack. Zuko doesn't say anything about it, and neither does Jee. Wanting to burn away clothes splashed with his father's blood seems reasonable. If Jee's father was... like that...

Well, it doesn't warrant thinking about.

There's no bending training for a few days while the city is brought under control. Loyalists are pursued relentlessly, and the tide of arrests doesn't ebb for three days.

The Avatar vanishes with his soulmate two days after the coronation, and that's a day before the letter from Ba Sing Se arrives.

_Zuzu,_

_Congratulations on your new title. Would you like to begin negotiations for Uncle's release, or should I keep him in prison for treason a while longer?_

That doesn't help the mood around the palace any.

When the Avatar returns from (apparently) the Western Air Temple, he is in a brighter mood until he sees the letter and has to be restrained from going after Azula then and there.

Zuko refuses to go to war. He draws the army and navy back. He has Hakoda and Bato, he has Pakku, and he has Kyoyo, so he calls a quick three-nation conference and determines that he needs to call a slightly less quick conference with all of the factions present, but first, the Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, and what's left of the Earth Kingdom need to decide what to do about Azula.

Aang offers the Western Air Temple as the most secure neutral ground available when Kyoyo and Pakku both object to Caldera City on the grounds that there is still an active civil war going on and the Western Sea Fleet, Southern Patrols, and scattered elements of the Home Fleet are all still out there and pose a real threat.

Jee suspects Aang doesn't want to leave the Air Temple alone. He can agree with the kid on that one.

Zuko sends Jee to the temple while he and Sokka deal with the continuous rebellions and also with nine incompletely healed wounds, three of which would have been fatal without waterbending. Jee is apparently the only person there that Zuko knows well enough to ask to represent Fire Nation interests (“I'm making you Prime Minister.” “What does that mean?” “I don't know, it's just what all the legal people said I had to do in order to send you.”).

The Avatar takes them to the temple personally, and it's not until they're all above the clouds, Pakku, Bato and Hakoda gripping the sides of the saddle for dear life while Katara and Kyoyo chat about bending styles, that Jee really absorbs the fact that _Appa can fly,_ and also he is very, very fast.

Aang and Katara go off together once they've landed. 

The delegation from Omashu arrives in the evening of their third day, and the first person off the airship is Jet.

He looks around, and then he yells “Jee!” and breaks into a run. Behind him, Jin smiles, and then Jet slams into Jee and wraps him up in a tight hug. Jee hugs him back, awkwardly. “Jee, are you okay? I heard Uncle has been captured.”

Jee swallows down his terror for the General. For his _friend, Iroh._

“I'm worried about him. But what about you? Sixty men against four hundred, Jet?”

Jet squeezes him, and his voice is suspiciously thick as he replies “I'm a Freedom Fighter. Eight to one is great odds.”

“Besides, he had me,” Jin says. She waits patiently for Jet to let go of Jee, and takes his hand to lead him towards the rest of the group at the Western Air Temple. Aang waves to Jet, and then freezes. A man steps out of the airship. He's extremely old, with an arc of wild white hair around the back of his head, and one eye that squints just a little. 

King Bumi of Omashu looks much stronger in person than Jee has heard him described. Ancient though he is, this is no frail old man. Aang runs to him, and their hug lasts even longer than the one Jet gave to Jee.

“It's so good to see you again,” Aang says while Katara hurries up behind him. 

“I'm glad you're okay, Bumi,” Katara says. Aang finally lets go, and Bumi smiles broadly at her.

“I hope you've been making sure Aang has some fun,” Bumi says.

“We went dancing in the Fire Nation,” Katara replies.

Jee remembers that story. Zuko tells it with equal parts fondness and horror.

“Good. Now, I need someone who can do heavy lifting. Or an earthbender with very good control.” Bumi grins. 

“I'll go get Toph,” Katara says. 

Aang nods. “Good idea. How many artifacts are there?”

“Thousands,” Jet says. “You're going to want room to inspect them all.”

Bumi nods. “You really are. And... I have a message for you from someone you never got to meet.”

Aang blinks. “My... my Air Nomad soulmate?”

Bumi nods solemnly, and Aang goes very still.

+

It's the work of about forty five minutes to get the ten stone-bottomed crates into a large, clear, indoor space in the temple. Once that's done, Bumi hands Aang a letter, still sealed even though it is stiff and slightly brittle with age. Aang opens it, and he stares.

The handwriting is precise, Northern Temple Script laid out to beautiful perfection. 

_To The Avatar,_

_I suspect, as my life winds down, that the Avatar I am addressing is my own Avatar Aang. Something has separated you, just a little, from the cycle and suffering of life, and I think your journey as Avatar has been a strange one. If I am correct, please know that I don't blame you. You couldn't have stopped the invasion if you were there. You only would have been killed._

_I have been, for eighty years, the last airbender. My life was proof that Avatar Aang was alive, and that secret is one that I intend to take to the grave. Only a few have ever known it: Hayon, a noblewoman pursued for knowing too much about the Firelord; Bumi, the king of Omashu; and the parents of a few of my children._

_I have taken great pains to achieve beyond survival, though. In the records halls of Omashu, there are clues that will lead you to a collection of five thousand six hundred and twenty one artifacts of the Air Nomads. Another three hundred and twelve artifacts are in the possession of my children, and I have many of those. Thirty people have agreed to help me with what I feel may be the most important part of my legacy: children._

_I have seen what the Fire Nation believes and teaches about purity of ancestry, and I believe that it is nonsense, but the entire culture of the Air Nomads is based on our connection to the elements. Twenty five of my forty children are airbenders. I have helped to raise all of them, and I have taught them as much as I may. Between them, and my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren, and the one great great granddaughter I have been privileged to meet, there are one hundred and six airbenders besides me, living in secret across the western Earth Kingdom. I am The Nomad, the one airbender the Fire Nation knows about, but one day the Air Nomads will return to the skies._

_You are the Avatar, and if you are not Aang, you will need a teacher. Trust in the king of Omashu. Whether it is Bumi you trust or his successor, they will lead you to the airbenders._

_And Aang, if you are reading this, please know that I have done everything in my power to ensure that no one else will ever know the pain of being the last airbender, because I know the wound it has left on me. It is a mortal wound, a pain in the soul that I felt far too young. I can only hope that I have spared you that hurt._

_Please carry on the traditions of the Air Nomads. Please revive us so that we can rise up stronger than before._

_With love and with hope,_   
_Sengge, The Nomad_

Aang stares.

He is not the last.

He is not all that remains.

One survivor, one man destined for greatness, one man who gathered together all that there was of the Air Nomads, who built a family of families, who stubbornly passed on his culture to so many more, and a tiny piece of his shattered world comes back. 

His soulmate.

He looks up at Bumi. “What was he like?” he asks.

Bumi smiles. He drops a hand to the floor while everyone looks on. Toph turns a curious ear behind him. He lifts his hand, a look of intense concentration on his face, and draws a life-sized statue from the ground.

Sengge was a tall man with full, round features. He had no hair or beard (of course: if Katara never grew any hair until Aang thawed, then Sengge never would have either). He wore bits and pieces of Earth Kingdom armor over loose peasant clothes not much different from what the people of Omashu wear now. A deep hood is draped down the back of Bumi's statue, one that would have concealed his face from casual inspection. He wears an easy smile, and leans on a staff that Aang recognizes as identical in design to his old one.

A bitter echo of the joy of Sealing passes through Aang. 

“He was strong,” Bumi says, his voice low and serious. “He never bowed to the Fire Nation. He fought to protect his family, benders and non-benders. He was very serious when I first met him, but when you know a man for fifty years, you see him change. He loved to laugh, in the end. He went that way. Laughing when I told him a joke about badgermoles.” Bumi wipes at a tear. “You would have loved him, Aang, and not because he was your soulmate.”

Aang looks past Bumi. 

Jet and Jin are working with Toph, Smellerbee, and Longshot to spread out the artifacts. 

There are books and clothes and dishes and jewelry and toys and art and tools and so many things that Aang thought were lost forever. The Air Nomads will probably never be what they once were, but they will be so much more than he was afraid they would be.

Katara hugs him, and he leans on her shoulder, eyes still fixed on the statue and the collection of his people's lives behind it, and he lets the tears roll down his face unimpeded. He reaches out to touch the statue. It is cold stone instead of soft flesh, but he tries his best to imagine.

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

Gratitude will never be enough. He'll just have to carry on the work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is coming along a little slower, but should speed up a bit now that Gritty has saved us all.

Azula isn't stupid. The political realities of her situation are ugly in a way few leaders have ever faced. The Dai Li joined her because they thought the Fire Nation's victory was inevitable, and they are not going to stay loyal once Zuko makes it clear that he's too ~~sensible~~ cowardly to keep fighting. Uncle is good insurance, but his utility is... blunted when it comes to the Dai Li. 

In short, the palace is a tense place to be, and Azula really wishes her _fucking_ leg would work right.

Ty Lee is not helping with her fun, bright personality.

“And I think Lord Shoho is just being paranoid,” she says, further contributing to Azula's headache. “I mean, what would your brother even want with his wife?”

“Is she quiet?” Azula asks. Mai snickers while Ty Lee pretends not to notice the insult. “Tell him that becoming Firelord doesn't mean Zuzu has automatically gained the stomach for war, and if he did, he could find better strategies than kidnapping the wife of a minor noble.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Which means his wife is either missing and in danger or finally got tired of looking at his weird chin. Send out a Dai Li search team. She _is_ still noble.”

“What if she left because she doesn't like him?” Ty Lee asks.

Azula glares at her. “Do what you think is best, Ty Lee.”

“You never tell _me_ to do what I think is best,” Mai complains.

Azula grins. “That's because what you think is best is always two to eleven inches of knife.” One of the Dai Li bodyguards snickers at the response while Ty Lee heads out to go find a missing noblewoman. Azula glares at the man, and he retreats with the others.

“How is it today?” Mai asks once they're alone.

“I walked here from the throne room,” Azula says. In truth, today is a very good day. She may never be quite the same again, but the pain is fading every day, and it's days like today that make her imagine a future where she limps not because she's in pain but because one of her legs is short and has one bend too many.

Of course, that future is predicated on a future where her head isn't mounted on a stick outside the Earth Palace as a warning to usurpers. The diplomats all say that the Earth King is “probably dead,” but her entire intelligence network insists that he's under Water Tribe protection somewhere. Killing him would definitely get her killed.

Mai grips Azula's foot and extends out her right leg. It's not painless. She pulls back Azula's skirt to examine the leg closely. Azula doesn't like looking at it. The way the bone pushes against her flesh is ~~a nauseating sign of weakness~~ ugly, and having something like that on her own body is uncomfortable. 

Like the burn on her arm.

“It doesn't look irritated. Why didn't you wait for me?” Mai is probably the only person who can get away with scolding Azula. 

“I need to walk into rooms on my own sometimes, you know,” Azula points out. 

“I don't see why,” Mai says. It's an obvious lie, but she says it anyway. Arrogant, beautiful liar.

“You know, arrogance is about half of what goes into a good lie like that,” Azula points out. Mai sets her leg down.

“I'm not lying. I don't see any reason for you not to have me with you every time you walk into a room.” Mai's left hand lingers on Azula's knee. Strong, confident fingers that could twist her kneecap out of place, poised just right to do exactly that. There's something about being around her that fills every moment with anticipation, and it isn't hard to figure out why. Mai is perfect for a thrill seeker. 

Azula is the sort of girl who chases the Avatar into a rooftop confrontation, or stands between her archers and their bending master targets. 

“What would I do without you?” Azula asks.

“You would be half as effective and probably dead.” Mai reaches over to the teapot that's set up between them and pours a cup. It's gone cold, so she hands it to Azula, who rolls her eyes, but heats up the cup. She takes a long, deep sip and sighs, “your uncle is the only one who doesn't burn North Farm Oolong. Every time the servants bring it, the whole pot is bitter.”

“Poor Mai, having to drink subpar tea in the palace with the queen because the tea man is a traitor.” 

Mai nods along. These few moments alone with her are precious, and best savored. There is something to Mai that is not unlike the instant before a new bending technique finally submits to her will. Azula leans to grab a cup and fill it for herself. She is just smirking happily at Mai over the rim of her teacup when her smile is toppled by a knock at the door. She sighs.

“Do come in,” Azula says, and the door opens. Two Dai Li come in, followed by a woman in a precise royal messenger's uniform, and then two more Dai Li.

“Your Majesty, there is a contingent of... um... ambassadors. They've just arrived from the Fire Nation at Half Moon Port, and they want to meet with you. They said they're not supposed to leave until they've achieved peace.” The messenger cringes back a bit as Azula gets to her feet. Mai stands up with her. 

“Where are they right now? How many are there and where are they from?” Azula asks.

“Still in their ship,” the messenger says. “There are five from the Fire Nation and three from each Water Tribe, as well as General Sako from the Earth Kingdom army.”

Azula nods. Zuzu is no warmonger, but she may be able to convince them that he's still a threat in _other_ ways. “Have them brought to the upper ring and give each of them a good house. Make sure the general isn't allowed to go to her own house yet.” She turns to one of the Dai Li . “Send a team to check it again. We'll let her go back tomorrow. Make sure the Fire Nation representatives are given smaller houses than the others, to remind them that they're here as supplicants. After all, we do have an army in their capital. Firelord Zuko does everything for the good of the Fire Nation, I'm sure, and he won't risk angering his soulmate by moving against the Water Tribes, but he has a war and a demobilization to pay for, and we're about to take the Colonies back from him. He might try to take advantage of us, and he'll find that you can't squeeze blood from a stone.” She smiles and gestures at the Earth Kingdom seal in the floor. “When you come back from the port, I expect the names and hometowns of each one of those Fire Nation ambassadors to be in your hands.” The woman nods. Azula gestures to her. “Did you need something else, or are you just standing here for no reason?”

The woman pulls a sealed letter out of her uniform. Azula snatches it and the woman makes such a hasty exit that she is pursued by one of the Dai Li and another takes the letter and opens it for Azula in an abundance of caution.

The Dai Li's eyes go wide and she hands over the letter without another word. It's not an assassination attempt, then.

It's just one line, followed by a truly disturbing number of signatures.

_Release him, or we will._

Fuck.

+

The scars are terrifying. Two in the back, one wide swath of damage across the chest, angry, puckered lines in his flesh that tell him exactly how close he came to death.

Anything but a waterbending healer wouldn't have been enough. He had to reach inside of himself and knit together flesh from the bottom of the wound, three times, while Sokka fought an entire squad of elite bodyguards with a spear. What it's left behind on his body is wreckage. A debris field of misery.

It also still hurts, though it's nowhere near the worst pain he's ever endured. In the (endless) meetings with his advisors, Sokka mimics his posture and tries to talk as much as he does so that he'll hurt just as much and be able to complain of his own pain and force the meeting to end before Zuko overtaxes himself, and it's cute, but it's also very frustrating because there is _so much_ to do.

Everything seems important, from pulling back Sozin's idiotic “social reforms” to demilitarizing everything from local constabularies to the fucking _Ministry of Agriculture_ (which was apparently folded completely into the military on the basis of a rumor about a potential farmer revolt sixty years ago). There's even a series of laws Ozai passed that makes it illegal to teach children to dance.

Who makes it illegal to teach kids to dance? How were they even supposed to enforce that one when the whole Fire Nation is dotted with caves that are _perfect for dance parties?_

Okay, so maybe Zuko's experiences are not exactly the whole spectrum of Fire Nation life, but still...

Aang comes back a few days after he left for the meeting at the Western Air Temple. He brings Katara and a draft of a treaty. “They want to kill her,” Aang says when he hands it over.

“Azula,” Sokka guesses. He has a habit of squinting his left eye when political stuff gets to him. “She's fourteen.”

Zuko sighs. “So is Smeller—” 

“That is _completely_ different,” Katara interrupts, “and I don't think you really want them to kill her.”

“She's my sister,” Zuko says. “Of course I don't want her dead. I didn't want Ozai dead, either. I don't want anyone dead!”

“She's going to make it hard to remove her without killing her,” Sokka says. 

Zuko nods. He's very, very aware of that. “The rules of war used to say that you don't kill royalty, but Azulon put an end to the rules when he condoned the assault on the Air Nomads. No one will listen to them anymore. Uncle could have brought her in alive, I'm sure of it, but somehow she got the drop on him and now we don't even have the White Lotus in Ba Sing Se. Ma Yeso arrived with most of the agents from the city the day after you left, Aang. I thought defeating Ozai was supposed to make things better!”

“It has,” Katara says. “We... Okay, promise you won't get mad?”

That is not a promise that Zuko can or should make.

“That is not a promise that Zuko can or should make,” Sokka says, “but tell us anyway.”

“We would never have been able to move Jet's Air Nomad artifacts if we hadn't defeated Ozai. You should see him, Zuko. If he'd been like this when we first met, that whole thing would probably have gone _really_ differently.”

“You would have done some jerkbending,” Aang adds helpfully.

“Oh, _so_ much jerkbending,” Katara adds. “You and Sokka would have taken _forever_ to get together because of all the jerkbending.”

“He keeps hugging Jee and being nice to people. It's weird.” Aang shrugs. “And he was arguing against killing Azula. I think he's really changed.”

Zuko hugs Aang. “Okay. Well, you two get some rest here, and when you go back, tell them that I'm not going to accept any agreement that involves killing my sister.” He hugs Katara, and then Aang, smiling at them both.

“We will. And don't worry, Zuko, we won't let them do it.”

+

Smellerbee is better with emotions than Toph. This is indisputable fact, but it is also _not helpful_ because there is a whole world between “better with emotions than Toph” and “good with emotions.” When Aang leaves with Katara to bring the first draft of the treaty to Zuko in the Fire Nation, Toph is beside herself with worry, because the other reason Smellerbee being better with emotions doesn't help is that Smellerbee is the one having problems.

“You've been really girly since we killed Ozai,” Smellerbee says the day Aang is (theoretically) due back.

“It's how I deal with stress,” Toph says at the same time as Smellerbee says “what's got you so stressed?”

There are a few moments of silence. “You,” Toph confesses at last.

Smellerbee stares. “You mean the part where Zuko can't look at me, or the part where I have no regrets?”

Her heart speeds up as she claims to have no regrets. “You regret it, Smellerbee. Just because Shitpile Ozai was a shitpile doesn't mean you don't regret splattering his son and our friend the pacifist with his blood.”

This is a conversation that she is glad to be having outside, well away from other people. She's pointed away from the rest of the temple, towards what people keep saying is a spectacular view. 

If you've seen one nothing, you've seen them all.

“I don't regret killing him,” Smellerbee says, and _that_ part is true. It's the parts in between the words that aren't. “It was the plan. And it's better that I did it. Can you imagine if it was Aang, or Zuko? Even Sokka would have felt bad. He would have done it, but he would have felt bad. You could have done it, but you were with Katara.”

“I don't...” Toph sighs. Smellerbee is right. That's the worst part. There was no way to be sure of what might have happened, but the idea of Aang killing Ozai, or of Zuko doing it, is painful. What does it mean for Aang to be forced to kill over and over this way? Yes, he's the Avatar, and yes, every previous Avatar has killed _someone_ (have they? Toph makes a note to check on that), but she can feel Aang's heart break every time he takes a life. “You wanted to kill Ty Lee. And you were arguing for killing Azula. But you don't like it.”

Smellerbee shakes her head. The stone here is solid, and transmits things like that very well. “I don't like it. I almost did, for a while. Jet did. Toph, I would kill Ozai a thousand times over. I blew up a dam to get rid of a few occupiers. Killing a man in front of the son he abused is nothing next to that.”

Smellerbee's breath is getting just a little ragged, and Toph reaches up to wipe away the tear that they know is there. “What if we could have taken him alive?”

“We couldn't,” Smellerbee says. “There's no point in thinking about it, because we couldn't. Besides, that's not what soldiers do.”

“You know, I'm almost thirteen,” Toph says, and Smellerbee lets them continue despite the non sequitor, because she knows that they'll get to the point eventually. “Most people, their teenage rebellion isn't killing dozens of people in a war, right?”

“How the fuck should I know, I lived in the woods for eight years. My teenage rebellion was also my childhood rebellion because that's how rebels work.”

Toph sighs. They wriggle their butt uncomfortably, but Aang will probably be sad if they leave an ass-groove in the culturally-significant stonework. “Do we actually know anyone who's had a normal childhood?”

“Aang did,” Smellerbee says.

“Right up until he froze himself in an iceberg.”

“Maybe normal childhoods are a myth,” Smellerbee speculates. Toph grabs her hand and pulls her close enough to lean on. 

“Normal is stupid. People who are the best don't have normal.” Toph squeezes their soulmate tight. “Maybe it's okay to do normal a little, though. And I feel like it might be a little normal to be upset about what happened.”

Smellerbee blows out a long breath. “Why couldn't anyone else have done it? Why did it have to be a bunch of warrior children?”

“Because adults are all fucking stupid,” Toph answers. There has been little evidence to the contrary in their life.

“Adults are so fucking stupid,” Smellerbee says.

“Uncle gets a free pass, though,” Toph says.

Smellerbee laughs. “I once saw him screw up counting profits at the end of the day four times in a row because there was a pretty woman, so no he doesn't.”

Somewhere in the last few days, it occurred to Toph that just because the war is over doesn't mean the peace has started yet. They don't even know how to be at peace, because they spent so long fighting.

“My parents thought the Fire Nation would leave them alone because they're rich and powerful. Ozai thought it was a good idea to attack the Avatar in front of all his friends. Jee was in love with _Uncle,_ of all people. Yeah. Adults are stupid.” Toph leans on Smellerbee. “Remind me not to be stupid when we're adults.”

If Smellerbee's laugh is a little hollow, that's okay. It's probably a little normal to be upset about what happened.

+

“You make Azula nervous.”

Iroh looks up. The Dai Li have been kind enough to let him have a featureless, empty room with no doors or windows that he can walk around in when they aren't keeping him manacled. This is as far as their kindness extends, and with Mai in the room, he is very much manacled.

“I have tried to be a soothing presence, but that is hard when I am confined to a prison.”

Mai rolls her eyes. She used to be such a sweet girl. Now, she is only sweet to Azula, and then only when she thinks no one will notice.

Except for him. She has shown her sweetness to him on purpose.

“I don't mean you, personally. I mean the concept of you. You're a diplomat's nightmare.” Mai circles the room. It is the featureless prison he is used to. He could likely break out, but it wouldn't actually get him anywhere, since he is in the palace and couldn't escape through it. Mai being in the room is, at least, something new to look at.

“If she would release me and give up the throne,” Iroh begins, but Mai shoots him a deadly look. He raises an eyebrow. “You know it is the best idea.”

“The Dai Li would kill her as she left.”

Iroh sighs. This assessment is... probably correct. Especially with Azula's current... disadvantages.

“You wish she could abandon the throne.”

“You know she can't,” Mai says, and she isn't just repeating what she's already said. Yes, Azula can't abandon the throne because the Dai Li would kill her without some kind of insurance. But more than that, she can't let go of the throne because she holds it too tightly. The throne is all that stands between her and a precipitous drop. 

The bottom of that drop is a frightening place, crackling with lightning and burning in blue fire.

“Before I made the decision to forsake my father's cause, I had to face down the same conflict that troubles her heart now. I imagine history will see me as a man who redeemed himself for the world, that scholars will pen essays about how I chose between loyalty and power on the one hand, and doing the right thing on the other. They will be wrong. I chose between my power and myself. I could not mourn my son while I struggled to keep the throne from my own brother. I have chosen my side selfishly: it is the only one that will let me sleep at night.” Iroh takes in a breath, letting it kindle flames inside of him against the cold stone. “Azula can choose power and misery, or she can leave power behind and choose to be happy. What would you have her do?”

“Burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground and leave no one to threaten her,” Mai says, and her tone is so sincere, so uncomplicated, that Iroh cannot deny she is being truthful.

“You would die for her,” Iroh says.

“If I have to die for her, someone has fucked up pretty badly,” Mai agrees.

“Would you betray her to stop her from betraying herself?”

Mai freezes., and Iroh goes on, “people like Prince... Fire Lord Zuko, they are lucky. A soulmate tells you that your fate is tied to one person. It is a signpost laid by fate to direct your loyalty where it must go. I do not think Azula's destiny is so simple, and she stands at its crossroads with you. What happens if you see her taking the wrong path?”

Mai sighs. “I don't know. I should kill you.”

“That would be the wrong path, and a betrayal.”

Mai shrugs. “I mean I should kill you for being a confusing old man.”

“Ah. I have been told it gets tiresome.”

“You have no idea,” Mai says. “Will Zuko go to war with us to get you back?”

“No,” Iroh says. “He won't risk another war. But he won't allow his family to dominate the Earth Kingdom, either. He has learned lessons that I am very proud of, and some lessons that I... do not like to think about. He saw what happened at the North Pole. He will not go to war, but he will dig Azula out of Ba Sing Se.”

Mai shudders a little bit.

“He can go ahead and try,” she blusters, but it is an obvious lie.


	3. Chapter 3

The fifth ride on Appa is almost routine. Almost. Jee will never be entirely used to it, but he does take a certain satisfaction in seeing Hakoda cling to the saddle very, very tightly. The landscape below them does not scroll peacefully by like it does from a balloon (a nauseating experience, however much serenity there may be in the clouds. He has to wonder if people traveled this way all the time when the Air Nomads were still abundant. Maybe, if they were still everywhere, this would be routine), but somehow it feels a little more secure up here.

Hakoda does not agree.

“You're trembling again, Chief,” Jee says.

“Just because you're a foreign dignitary does not mean you have permission to laugh at me,” Hakoda says.

From up front, where he has been happily watching the little islands go by (smug, unafraid, hot bastard) with Aang, Bato adds “it doesn't mean he doesn't have permission either, Love. That's not in the diplomatic rulebook.”

“The diplomatic rulebook doesn't really apply to this situation anyways,” Bumi says. “Besides, it's three hundred years old and the only remaining copy is covered in fruit spread. Aang, are we getting close to the capital?”

“Bato just spotted it,” Aang says as Bato points ahead of them.

Jee scoots over next to Hakoda. “Your husband is sharp-eyed, gigantic, and way too confident,” he informs the chief.

Hakoda flashes him a strung-out grin. “I'm going to throw him in the harbor when we get low enough,” he says. “Smug bastard with his ability to look over the side.”

“Dad,” Katara scolds, but she is giggling. Twenty minutes later, the giggles return when Bato skips once off the waves, probably because Katara has pushed Hakoda over as well. Jee shrugs ~~and tries to ignore the little surge of envy that accompanies the sight of Hakoda and Bato clinging happily to each other in the water.~~

The chief and his husband arrive on shore about the time that Zuko and Sokka reach them. Zuko gives a concerned look to the two sopping wet men, but Sokka just grins and whispers something in his ear. Zuko sighs, whispers back, and steps forward. “You have a decent agreement?”

Jee nods. He hands the papers they've drawn up to Zuko. “The Earth Kingdom and the Northern Water Tribe refuse to permit the Fire Nation to keep records of any benders outside its own borders, and the Southern Water Tribe and Avatar Aang have agreed that it's a reasonable precaution, provided that all nations agree to the restriction. That's waiting on ratification from all governments, but I've agreed to it independently, pending your approval, as a gesture of trust. With that, your task force is allowed as long as it includes Avatar Aang, Katara, Toph Beifong, Smellerbee—”

“Our team,” Zuko fills in. “With or without me?”

“Without you,” Sokka and Hakoda say at the same time, then Hakoda continues, “Nobody trusts anyone else in the Fire Nation to lead without restarting the war.” Katara starts bending the water out of his clothes, almost absently, as he speaks. “That means you're staying here, too, Sokka.”

Sokka sticks out his lower lip. “I knew that.”

“Sokka, just this morning you said you were looking forward to kicking my sister's butt.”

Sokka blushes. “That can be a post-arrest activity! She might escape, and then I can kick her butt!”

“Sokka, no,” Zuko, Katara, Aang, and Bato all chime at once. Aang starts giggling.

“Ugh, fine.” Sokka sighs. “But you have to let me go shopping tomorrow.”

Jee leans over to Hakoda, who has begun to shiver a little bit. He heats up enough to warm the chief. “Your son is a handful.”

“Your Fire Lord is barely keeping him in check,” Hakoda shoots back.

Jee rolls his eyes. “Fire Lord Zuko is an expert. They haven't had a fist fight in months.”

“Please stop gossiping about me in front of me,” Zuko says. 

Hakoda laughs. “Fair enough. Come on, we have to strategize and get the whole team figured out.”

“There's more?” Zuko says incredulously.

“They agreed to get her out without killing her,” Jee says. “Killing her would be easy, but digging her out alive? That takes overwhelming force, finely wielded.”

+

Toph keeps insisting that the airships, as ships, should have names. This is not a consensus that the Fire Nation has reached, but they are well on their way.

Naturally (Jet is beginning to see that “naturally,” where Toph is concerned, is usually a mildly concerning word), they have named the airship that is ferrying their little group to Caldera City _Juicy Cactus._ They refuse to explain to him, but Yue keeps giggling about it, and it's the giggle that seems to signify Sokka's involvement. She giggles very differently when Sokka is involved.

He catches some of the crew painting the name, or, more accurately, a big, green, drippy cactus _next to_ the slowly drying name, on the side when he goes outside to sit on the catwalks around the gondola, and the three women all give him guilty looks until he sits down and tosses his weirdly sweet Western Air Temple grass over the side, pulling out a new piece and popping it in his mouth. “Ladies,” he says. “If that's a Si Wong cactus, you should add a couple of pink flowers.”

Caldera City is coming up in the distance, and Jet ~~briefly considers jumping into the unforgiving sea~~ is not looking forward to it. They're all coming together again, the same team that almost took down Azula last time, plus a few extras, and that means he's going to see Zuko again.

People he's hurt are thick on the ground lately. He touches his left cheek, where the scar sits. He reaches into his pocket. The lock of Zuko's hair is still there, and he purses his lips. This is going to hurt.

As their descent begins, he hears a breathy chuckle behind him, and Longshot sits down. His hands work, at first, in meaningless grips on the railing, then, hesitantly, he says “I figured you would be out here.”

Jet nods. “I'm afraid,” he admits, not willing to yell to be heard over the engines and the wind. The stifling Fire Nation air isn't helping the feeling of foreboding, nor is the visible gathering of nobility (fucking nobility) and Fire Navy ships near their landing spot.

“He won't hurt you,” Longshot says. He taps a finger against the railing a few times, thoughtful, then adds “Sokka might.” 

“You've been talking to Toph.” Jet watches as Appa lumbers skyward to escort them in. He can see Aang, watching them. The moment the Avatar spots the name on the side of the airship, he starts to laugh, a loud cackle rendered thready by the wind between them. Longshot waves, and Aang waves back.

“I like them,” Longshot says. “Toph is sweet, once you get past the violence.”

“Toph is sweet even when they're being violent. Violently sweet. Sweetly violent.” Jet tries to spot Zuko. He's Fire Lord now, so he should be surrounded by guards and spirits know Jet probably won't even be able to get close to him.

Longshot seems to have run out of things to say, but he reaches out and squeezes Jet's hand. Jet squeezes back. The sound of the engines slows and they bring the airship down, mooring lines securing it to the ground while the fan noise is replaced by crowds. Jet gets up and goes inside to get his and Jin's room cleared out. She is waiting there, sitting on the end of the bed.

“I got my stuff packed up,” she says.

Jet nods. “Good. Um...”

“I'll go talk to people. You know they're going to ask us to help, right?” Jet swallows a lump in his throat, and Jin hugs him. “It's going to be okay.” She kisses him. “You pack up.”

Jet puts his things together after she leaves. Swords, extra clothes, the new armor he got in Omashu, and he's just trying to decide what to do with the tea leaves King Bumi gave him when a knock on the door frame makes him jump.

Zuko is there. His hair is a little longer, the splotchy burns across his face have been accented with a couple of scars from cuts, and he is frowning.

“Hi Jet,” he says. “Toph told me where to find you.”

Jet nods. “I... I never really apolo—”

“Don't,” Zuko says. He steps into the room. “You never _tried_ to kill me. And you've more than made up for it. And I won't ask if you'd do it again. I know, knowing what you know, you'd know better. And. Um. You know?” 

Jet laughs, but there's less mirth in it than he'd like. “There's that awkward Zuko charm. I'm still sorry. And you're right. I wouldn't do it now. I think, if I knew, I would have just joined you guys.”

“We couldn't have fit all of you on Appa,” Zuko points out, then looks down at the floor. “That's not the point, though. Look, I wanted to do something for you. You've done so much for Aang, and you know by now that he'll give you anything he can, but he's just one kid and I'm the Fire Lord. I can give you money, or land, or a title, or—” 

It's all too much, and Jet cuts him off with a rush into a hug. “Please don't do any of those things. I don't need any of that from you. And... um... I have to give you something, actually.” He lets go and reaches into his pocket. “I remember what you told me about the Fire Nation, and hair, and...” He pulls the lock of Zuko's hair from his pocket. It's a little singed, very much worse for wear from being carried around for months. Zuko's right eye gets very wide when he sees it, and he takes it gently, staring down at the curled hair. “I always sort of hoped we would meet again, and then when we did, it was in fucking Ba Sing Se, and that was a total shitshow. It's funny. I wanted to show you that I still had it because I was... Zuko, I was so in love with you it was embarrassing.”

Zuko blushes _hard,_ and yeah, he's still recklessly cute. “Uncle would say that you should never be embarrassed about being in love. If I hadn't had Sokka, I might have stayed with you.” Jet can feel the heat rising in his own cheeks at that.

“That would have been such a disaster,” Jet says.

Zuko laughs. “Yeah. Total disaster. You know, for a while, I thought it was awful that you were my first kiss. But then I got to know you a little better in Ba Sing Se, and I heard about what you'd been through from Smellerbee, and Aang told us what you've done for him, and I think I could've done a lot worse.”

“My first kiss was Smellerbee,” Jet confesses. “Pipsqueak looted some liquor off of a Fire Nation scouting party and we were the last two awake. I don't know if you've ever had your best friend try to let you down easy, but it's kind of a weird experience.” He shakes his head. “I was trying to manipulate you, back then. It was the wrong thing to do, but...”

“But you had to do the wrong thing every day to survive,” Zuko fills in. “And when you have to do the wrong thing to survive, it's not quite so easy to call it the wrong thing anymore. Smellerbee told us a lot about how it was after she started traveling with us. Jet, I'm really sorry you and I met when we did. It could have been so much better for us.”

Jet shakes his head. “It could have been so much worse, too. I'm glad I met you.”

Zuko takes Jet's hand and presses the lock of hair back into it. “You should keep this. And you should come with me. We have to plan Uncle's rescue.”

Jet sighs. “Fuck. I'm gonna have to say I'm sorry to him, too.”

“I bet you anything he understands,” Zuko says, bumping Jet's shoulder.

“Uncle? No bet, he definitely understands.”

+

The last time everything felt this _right,_ Sokka was in his mother's arms. He remembers it perfectly: her voice singing an old love song, his hand resting on Katara's ice-cold head, dad swearing softly in the corner with Bato while they worked together on a shredded fishing net. Only a few weeks later, the whole world would fall apart, but that moment was perfect. Now, nearly everyone he cares for is in one place, and with the planning over, they are taking the time to just be together. Dad and Suki are quizzing Jin on weapons, Yue is snuggled up on his left side, Zuko on his right, Katara and Aang are bent together across the table, talking about the unmitigated catastrophe that was Six Piers Burning with Bato and Jee. Jet, Smellerbee, Toph, and Longshot are doing something that is definitely not pai sho, but does involve a pai sho board and tiles. Everyone is here, and it feels like a home. 

If Zuko wasn't writing one last desperate letter to his sister, it might be perfect, but as it is, they are still surrounded by the people who love and support them, and also the people who will finish solving this problem.

Zuko puts down his pen, and he hands the letter across Sokka to Yue. “What do you think?”

“Too aggressive,” she concludes after a few minutes. “This sounds like you're willing to go to war against her. She'll use it to stir up the Dai Li.”

“I don't know what to do without telling her that King Kuei is alive, and that would put him in danger,” Zuko groans.

Yue pulls him across Sokka (Sokka does not mind this: Zuko wears fairly thin silks at home, and he gets a faceful of sexy Zuko-pecs) to kiss his cheek. “You can do this, Zuko.”

_"You_ can do this,” Zuko replies. _“I_ learned tact from sailors who were assigned to my ship as punishment for being unruly.”

“You learned tact from a tigerdillo,” Sokka mumbles.

“That tigerdillo holds a very important position in King Kuei's court,” Toph says from where they are winning(?) their game of not-pai sho. “She's the undersecretary to the assistant chief intern of the third minister to the advisory committee on security for trade in the northern sector of the eastern province of western Omashu.”

Jin, Jet, Longshot, Smellerbee, Suki, and Bato start giggling. Everyone else looks baffled, except for Yue, who says, “isn't that a real title?”

“Yes,” Toph says, “and she's awful and my parents kept inviting her for dinner and I wanted to bury her under the house.”

“Here,” Dad says, “let me see.”

“You're a foreign leader,” Zuko complains.

“I'm also your future father in law. Give.” Dad takes the paper, and he reads it over several times, very slowly. “Why are you writing in such formal language?”

“Because it's an official diplomatic letter?” Zuko says.

“To your sister, Jerkbender,” Sokka says. “Call her a name and tell her to come home.”

“Dear Earth Queen Azula,” Suki intones happily, “You are being such a pain right now. I'm older, and that means I'm in charge, so stop being mean to Uncle and come home or I'm telling... um...”

“Great Grandpa Roku, who is also Aang,” Aang fills in after swallowing a mouthful of tea a little too quickly and wincing.

“Sincerely, your big brother, Fire Lord Zuko,” Katara finishes.

“I mean... kinda,” Dad says. He passes the letter back to Zuko. “Try a little less formal. Maybe a bit more respectful and less full of jokes than that, but they weren't really that far off.”

Sokka kisses Zuko on the cheek, then, just because he can, on the lips. “You know better than any of us how to get through to her. You can do it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and get your

Jee is a surprisingly good teacher. Hakoda never really had the chance to teach Sokka, not the way he wanted to; a three-month crash course in guerrilla tactics for kids doesn't count as warrior training, and no amount of Bato getting to take him ice-dodging or mid-battle bonding is going to fix that. Sokka has gotten more semi-formal training from Fire Nation combat veterans than from his own father, and now one of those veterans is training Aang right in front of him.

The fact that it's going poorly doesn't actually reflect much on Jee's skills. Jeong Jeong, Zuko, and three highly experienced firebending instructors have all concluded that Aang has a couple of different mental blocks going when it comes to firebending. As Aang gives up on the latest kata and walks away to go sit with a sympathetic-but-worried Katara, Jee crosses to Hakoda and leans his forehead against the cold metal of their ship's superstructure. Their little convoy is set to arrive four days before the comet, conveniently after Azula has had time to read and ~~reject~~ consider Zuko's latest letter about Iroh.

“The General was supposed to do this,” Jee says.

“You miss him,” Hakoda replies. “I understand that. What's going on with the kid? Maybe I can help.”

“He's afraid of fire, and he's... he's desperately in love with your daughter. I don't know quite how that factors in, but it's been throwing him off. Pri—Fire Lord Zuko said there were two things blocking out Aang's understanding of firebending, but he didn't have any idea what the second thing was. Being afraid of fire, I can understand. Every firebender goes through it, and he lost his entire culture to the flames. I don't understand what Katara has to do with firebending, though.”

Hakoda reaches out to squeeze Jee's shoulder. Coming out of the superstructure, Bato pats the man hard enough to make him stagger a little, then Piram, Nilom, and Hik all follow after him, adding their own comforting gestures.

It's a wonder Jee isn't a huge mass of bruises by now.

“Bato, come listen to this,” Hakoda says. “Jee says Aang is in love with our little girl.”

“'Koda, you know if she catches you calling her that, she'll throw you in the water again.” Bato comes around to huddle up with them. “Also, that's not news. He's more obvious about it than you were with Kya. He's almost as obvious as Jee is with _me.”_ Jee turns bright red. 

“He also says it's part of why Aang is having trouble with firebending,” Hakoda says.

Bato looks down at the deck for a few moments. “Fire is her opposite element,” he points out after a few moments. “But Zuko learned water pretty fast. I think you're on the right track, Jee, but remember, Aang doesn't always tell you exactly what he's feeling and why. He doesn't always know. He must have objected to my plan to meet up with Hakoda outside the Bay of Weeping Mothers a dozen times. I had to push and pry to get him to admit he was worried his friends wouldn't talk to him anymore once they had their whole tribe around them. Sometimes, he has trouble with something because he's thinking too many steps ahead.”

“Alright, then what's after learning fire?” Hakoda asks.

“Fighting Azula,” Jee says. “She... well, you know what happened in Ba Sing Se.”

“What about mastering the Avatar State?” Bato asks. “I haven't seen him use it since...” he trails off. The North Pole is still hard to talk about, and Hakoda is never going to judge him for that.

“I think the last time he did use it was in Ba Sing Se. Before Azula showed up.” Jee leans back, blowing out a breath that stirs his bangs (he is beginning to get more than a little shaggy up top. Hakoda has found plenty of indicators in Fire Nation books that this means good things for Jee's mental health, which is obliquely gratifying). “He went for some kind of training about it. I don't know what that has to do with Katara, either, though.”

“Maybe we should talk to Katara about it,” Hakoda says. “She's taught him, after all.”

“Her and Toph,” Bato agrees. “Where'd that little menace get off to?” He looks around, then yells “Toph! Katara, could you come here?” Count on Bato to be direct and unsubtle. Spirits, he's good to have around.

Toph emerges from below decks with Smellerbee, who immediately breaks off to go watch Hik and Nilom confuse the Fire Nation crew with one of their flirty fights. Katara disentangles herself from Aang, who immediately gloms onto poor old Tosrom. Fortunately, Tosrom has been a grandfather for two and a half decades, and smoothly moves into hugging the frustrated kid, though clearly not as well as Katara can.

“Teacher conference,” Hakoda says. “Jee's worked out part of why Aang is blocked up about firebending. It's got something to do with how he feels about you, Katara.”

Katara flushes _deeply_ at that. If Bato can be direct, so can Hakoda. “Oh, wow,” Toph says. “Sugar Queen's heart is going like crazy now. Good work Water Dad.” They reach out to shake Hakoda's hand.

“I know how he feels,” Katara says. “He's my soulmate. Obviously I know how he feels. Have we thought about him worrying too many steps ahead?”

Jee nods. “I think that might be part of it, but every time I try to work with him and you're around, he starts losing focus when he sees you. He burns too cold during control exercises if I mention you. He loves you, but something about you and advancement scares him.”

“Does he do that about me?” Toph asks. They hold up their hands, which have a few splotchy burns on them. “He accidentally burned me once.”

“He does, but not as much,” Jee says.

Katara frowns. She turns, marches away, and comes back with a confused Avatar. “Aang, what do you think is going to change between you and me when you master firebending?”

Aang looks up at the rest of them. “Nothing?” he says.

Katara raises an eyebrow. Hakoda feels a smile struggling to break through his own composure.

“What scares you about me and firebending, then?” Katara grabs his hands even as he starts to fidget with the hem of his monk robe. “Hey. Nobody is mad at you. Take your time.”

Aang closes his eyes. “After firebending, I have to learn how to use the Avatar State,” he says.

Hakoda opens his mouth to prompt Aang, but Jee bumps him with his hip and shakes his head. Toph's eyes get just a little wider. Aang looks a bit pale. How fast must his heart be going?

“But I have to give up... I have to let go of you in order to do that. Guru Pathik, he said I have to let go of my... um... my...” he pulls Katara close and whispers in her ear. Her eyes get very, very wide, and then slip closed. She grabs Aang and wraps him up in a hug. 

“Okay,” she says. “That would scare me, too. Why don't we go to the Eastern Air Temple, you, me, and Jee. We can talk to this guru and figure this out.”

“Okay,” Aang says. 

“And Aang,” Katara says, then she leans over to whisper into his ear. He turns pink with shocking speed, and she leads him away towards the bow.

“Wow,” Toph says. “That was really cute, and they forgot I can hear whispers again.” They walk away to go grab Smellerbee, who greets them with a hug and an attentive ear.

“Thank you, Bato,” Jee says. “That would've taken days if you hadn't gotten us all together.”

“He's a good first mate,” Hakoda brags.

Jee nods, redness once again dusting his face. “He is. You're lucky, Hakoda.”

~~It's probably inappropriate to enjoy making a foreign leader blush this much, right?~~

+

Aang won't say he's _astonished_ by this development. It makes perfect sense, and the Eastern Air Temple seems like a good enough gathering place, but to see forty people decked out in things that are _very nearly_ traditional Air Nomad clothes is still surprising. 

Guru Pathik, on the other hand, seems completely unaffected, once Aang spots him. The old man is sitting near one of the outbuildings, talking with a group of children— _Airbending children! Do they know how to play airball? What is it like to be an airbender now?_ —and not interrupting himself even when he looks up and raises an eyebrow at Aang and his bisonload of teachers and assorted leader-type people.

A man of at least fifty hurries to greet them, bowing politely. “Avatar Aang. My father told me I would meet you one day. I'll admit I thought he was wrong.” He smiles. “I'm glad he wasn't. My name is Shang. I don't know how much you know about Sengge of the Northern Temple...”

By the time Shang has trailed off leadingly, Katara, Toph, and Jee are on the ground, and Jet is helping Jin and Hakoda get Appa settled; it turns out Jet is great with animals. Aang smiles awkwardly. “You're... you're all Sengge's descendants?”

“We're about a quarter of his descendants,” Shang laughs. “I gathered a bunch of my cousins and their families when we heard the Fire Nation was withdrawing.”

Aang blinks. “Why?”

“Because we've had plans for this for years,” Shang says. “We're very excited to tell you about what we've accomplished.”

“We'd love to hear it,” Katara says, “But could you talk to Jin and Jet while we find... Aang, what was his name?”

“Guru Pathik.” Aang points towards where the guru is descending the stairs, a crowd of eager children following behind him. “Jin and Jet helped get the artifacts that the Rough Rhinos stole back. They're safe under guard at the Western Temple.”

Shang's eyes get very, very wide. “They were recovered? We kept them safe for so long, losing them was...”

“You got your revenge,” Jet says, approaching from the direction of a now-child-covered Appa. “I mean, if you were looking for it. The Rough Rhinos... didn't survive losing their plunder.”

Jet starts talking with Shang, and Aang hurries to Pathik with Jee, Katara, and Toph behind him.

“Avatar Aang,” Pathik says. “It is good to see you again. I hear your fight with the Fire Lord went well.”

“It wasn't really because of me,” Aang says.

Pathik starts towards the Main Hall, and they follow along. “Don't discount yourself, even if you didn't strike the final blow,” Pathik says. “A war is won by soldiers, yes, but also by generals.”

“So it's because of Sokka?” Aang and Katara chime at once. Pathik laughs. 

“Perhaps so,” the old man says as they make their way into the Main Hall. The frescoes in here are charred, but restoration has visibly begun, with several of them scrubbed clean. Pathik eases himself onto a stone bench, and Aang sits next to him. “You are troubled by what I told you the last time you were here,” he says, “about learning to let go of Katara.” He inclines his head respectfully towards her, and comprehension flits across Jee's face.

Aang nods. “I... I can't do that,” he says, taking Katara's hand.

Pathik smiles. “I understand. But Aang, I worry that you have misunderstood. Of course, the vision you had here was terribly frightening, and you had to choose, then, between staying here to complete your training and going there to save your friend, but letting go of someone is not the same as giving them up. It's funny: Sengge and I had nearly this same conversation about you once. He was afraid that his proper path must be to find you. If you tie every action to a specific person, you will only harm yourself and the world. You must accept that what you love and what the universe needs will not always be the same.”

Aang draws his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on one of his knees. Something is clenched tight in his chest. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

Pathik shakes his head. “Fate doesn't make that distinction. You did what you did. If you had not, we cannot know what would have happened. Maybe Katara would have been captured, forcing you to rescue her with all the powers of the Avatar State. Maybe she would not have survived without you there, and then where would we be, hm? No Katara, no more Avatar, and no more Earth Kingdom. The choice you made has led us here, and here is a good enough place to stand.”

“Then you can help me get the Avatar State back?” Aang says hopefully.

Pathik peers at him through narrowed eyes. “No. You have abandoned the path I set you on. You must learn firebending and find your own way from there. What happened to you in Ba Sing Se has...” he shakes his head, and apprehension sweeps over Aang. “Tangled your chakras. What brought you back from death may be the best place to begin. But I can tell you where you must go next.”

“We're going to Ba Sing Se to get Sparky's evil sister out of there next,” Toph says, which sounds suspiciously like The Wrong Path Again, but Pathik only laughs.

“I know. You will go there without having mastered firebending. But after that, you should seek the masters Ran and Shaw with your teacher.” He pats Aang's back, then stands up. “Your new friends will be happy to host you for the night here.”

+

Aang's description made Guru Pathik sound like a silly old man, and although he is certainly _whimsical,_ Katara finds herself not at all believing that he is silly. Pathik is sharp. By the time evening comes around, he has beaten Dad at dom-ten, had some kind of deep conversation that ended with Jet in tears, and convinced Toph to bend an iron sculpture of Appa for him.

Aang seems delighted but confused by the people all over the temple, and as he is spreading out his blankets for the evening, Katara sits next to him. He pauses and glances over at her, blushing.

“Do you remember when we were in Makapu Village and Ty Lee found out we were still alive?” Katara says.

Aang's blush deepens. He is pointedly not looking at Katara, focused on setting up his blankets. There was a time, months ago, when this sort of thing confused her. _He's my soulmate. Why won't he look at me?_ It's interesting, to understand that, partly, she's _his_ soulmate because that doesn't bother her. “I remember,” he says. 

“That was such a scary time, and we both hated being a secret. But we were together through it.” She reaches out, turning towards the fire. Dad and Jee are huddled together on the fringes of their little camp, talking with Shang and a woman about his age who Katara is pretty sure is his wife. They are laughing sometimes. After a few moments, Aang takes her hand. “I know this is scary, too. We don't know what's going to happen. But we're going to be together through it.”

Aang squeezes her hand. One week. They only have one week until they have to confront Azula. “What if we fail?” he says.

Katara shakes her head. She knows Aang is watching her, can feel his eyes on the side of her head. “We'll make it. We're going to do this and nothing is going to stop us. But... even if, somehow, we don't, I won't regret it. Aang, the first time I ever felt warm, it was because you came into my life. You understand that? You literally made my life better from the moment I met you. Even if that all ends in a week, I still got to have _this.”_

Aang's hand squeezes hers tight, and he shifts around, settling in next to her.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” she replies, and yeah, they both already knew that much, and yeah, they've told each other before, after all, they're _soulmates,_ but... “I mean it,” she adds, and she reaches over to cup his cheek gently as she turns to face him. There's a tiny scar on his forehead (hers, from when they sank the _Snapdragon_ and a catapult rocked the ship so hard she hit one of the bulkheads with her forehead), which she focuses her eyes on until she notices him looking right at her, and when their eyes meet, it seems only natural for their lips to meet, too, in a gentle, easy kiss that doesn't last for more than a few seconds before Toph whistles loudly from where they're talking with some of the airbender kids. 

Katara gestures rudely at them while she breaks the kiss, and Toph yells “I know you're doing something rude, but I can't see it so I win.”

Aang smiles at that. “I love our friends, too, but I love you more,” he says.

“I love... some of our friends,” Katara says with mock reluctance. She sighs. “And Toph is one of them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KATAANG!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: the third scene in this chapter is a _very_ intense battle and does not hold back on the carnage. Keep that in mind when reading. I'll summarize in the end notes.

“So, on a scale from Omashu to Ba Sing Se, how likely is this infiltration plan of theirs to work?” Ty Lee is pacing back and forth, obviously concerned. The Dai Li agent who brought the report watches her closely. 

“I would imagine, Lady Ty Lee, that that depends upon whether the airbenders take part in the fight,” he says. 

Azula rolls her eyes. “They won't. Even if they were an organized fighting force, the Avatar would be too afraid to use them properly. After all, they're the last of his people, aren't they?” She stretches out her leg. It's been a few good days, with Ty Lee's weird aura healing and her own careful heat to soothe the pain. That doesn't mean she's about to dance a Nomad Jig (which would be undignified anyways), but it does mean she has every intention of participating in the repulsion of the Avatar's forces, since her presence will ~~prove she isn't weak~~ counter the advantages their firebenders will have from the comet.

The upshot of all this?

“They can try to attack, but if they use more than a couple of firebenders, I'll just declare that the Fire Nation is going back to war, their alliance will fall apart, and we'll crush them. They're only giving me an opportunity.”

The Dai Li agent turns a concerned look on her. “Your Majesty?”

Azula grins. “The people who are least loyal to me are the same ones who believe the Fire Nation is least trustworthy. The Fire Nation is going to be spearheading this attack. We put them on the front lines, arranged so those who pose the biggest threat to our stability take the attack first and the ones who are questioning their loyalty but reluctant to commit get a front-row seat to me stopping the incursion.”

Everyone in the room turns to stare at her, which is something she's used to. It once meant that she had said something which both pleased Father and outraged the council, which, in turn, amused Father ~~and was therefore safe.~~ Now, it seems to mean that people are worried about her, or don't know how viable her plan is.

“I'd rather keep you safe,” Mai says.

“You always keep me safe,” Azula replies. “That's what your knives are for. And what Ty Lee does by existing.”

“Your majesty, you haven't fought since the... incident,” the Dai Li agent says, eyeing her leg.

Azula stands and strides as smoothly as she can across the throne room to stand in front of the man. She knows she cuts an intimidating figure in her royal robes, if for no other reason than that she is, after all, queen. She calls a bright blue flame into her left hand. “Do you think I can't fight anymore?” She brings the flame, no larger than a candle's, a little closer to his face. The urge to burn him is strong. Maybe a scar to match Zuzu would be fitting. “Do you think Agni won't bless me when the comet comes?” She smirks at him. “You can already see it at night. Do you think it means nothing? I can already feel it. Let them come. Let them eat lightning.”

She closes her fist around the fire. The Dai Li agent's shoulders slump just a little.

He probably shouldn't be getting comfortable just yet.

+

Hakoda walks in on his daughter kissing the Avatar when he goes to find them. Everyone involved is very invested in pretending that it never happened, so he clears his throat and bulls on with his message: “Azula's answer just arrived.” He waves the rolled-up letter. “We're going to go in to get General Iroh. 

Aang, who is bright red, says “she probably already knows. Zuko says she always knows.”

Hakoda nods, gesturing for them to follow. “With the Dai Li doing her bidding, that doesn't surprise me at all. They must know by now that the rest of the world will never let them continue to exist with how many times they've betrayed the Earth Kingdom.”

“I never understood how the woman who created as powerful a force for independence as my own people could also create a secret police force to uphold a monarch,” a voice says, and Shi, one of Suki's main squad, joins them from a side corridor as they make their way to the bridge. If this was a Water Tribe ship, they'd just have their little meeting wherever ~~and also there wouldn't be enough spaces for Katara to hide in and make out with the Avatar, but Hakoda can't exactly object to that, since he is, after all, _the Avatar,_ and also literally her soulmate. Why must Hakoda's life be so damn weird?~~

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Hakoda says.

“Avatars make _really big_ mistakes,” Aang says.

They round the corner to the bridge, and Jee waves them over. The attack force is Jee with Suki and her warriors and Jet and his Freedom Fighters on one of the little(ish) balloons they've brought, Piandao, Bato, Pakku, and a bunch of the Water Tribe warriors on the other, and Aang, Katara, Jeong Jeong, and Toph on Appa with Hakoda.

It feels like a big, powerful force, but as they review their maps, it's impossible to ignore just how much of this hinges on everything going perfectly. Even with an overwhelming force of war balloons, a strike on Ba Sing Se is risky at best, between the city's vast size and the sheer number of highly-trained benders there, and here they are planning an attack on the best defended part of it in the hopes that General Iroh is where they expect him to be.

“Our goals are simple,” Jeong Jeong says. “Rescuing Iroh is the first priority, and Team Avatar—that's me, Katara, Toph, and the Avatar himself—will be using the distraction of the attack to infiltrate the palace.” He points to the path from Full Moon Bay, where they're moored, to the palace. “On the way in, Team Kyoshi and Team Kuruk will be dropping fliers to inform the populace of what's happening in Ba Sing Se. Hopefully, if we fail, that will spark a popular uprising. The main attack's goal will be to draw out and capture Princess Azula. Pakku and Jee, as the benders in those teams, will be instrumental in achieving that, but they'll be fighting uphill until Team Avatar can return with General Iroh.”

“If Team Avatar fails,” Jee says, smoothly taking over, “our fallbacks are the balloons first, retreat through the city second, go to ground third. General Sako and her people are standing ready to help on the ground if we need them, but they'll be outnumbered and in a bad position. We're going to lose some people today, no matter what happens.”

Aang swallows hard next to Hakoda, and Katara takes his hand.

“Your team leaders will brief you on any specifics on the way in,” Hakoda says. “Let's go.”

Their meeting breaks up, and Hakoda catches Bato for a quick hug and kiss. “You take care of yourself,” he says.

Bato waggles his burned arm. “Am I ever reckless, 'Koda?”

“You? Never.” Jee leans into their conversation. “I expect to see both of you back on the ship tonight. In one piece.”

Bato grins. “Mister Prime Minister, I'm beginning to think you might like us.”

“As a Fire Nation Dignitary,” Jee begins, but Bato interrupts him with a kiss to the cheek. Jee turns almost as red as Aang was earlier.

“We like you, too. One piece, all of us. Deal?”

Hakoda rolls his eyes. “Don't go making deals in my name, Bato.”

“D-deal,” Jee manages. He retreats to follow Team Kyoshi.

“You shouldn't tease him,” Hakoda notes.

“Are you ready to talk about it, then?” Bato asks.

“No. Ask me again after this whole debacle is over.” Hakoda goes to find his daughter and the elite team of bending masters she's assembled.

+

Mai doesn't pace very often. It burns up energy, and knife throwing takes a surprising amount of energy on its own, and when she's in battle, she's usually weighed down with a whole lot of knives for throwing, and extra layers of armor, so pacing is a bad idea and she's done everything she can to keep from developing the habit, but tonight...

Tonight she is nervous. Small explosions have echoed through the palace several times already, and there are at least two teams of invaders, and of _course_ they've refrained from putting too many firebenders in the invading force. Mai peers out of the window again. A plume of fire rips across the courtyard below. The comet is on the other side of the world, but its effects are clear to see. Even Mai, a non-bender, can feel it, like her blood is boiling. The attack is spearing in behind their single firebender, a wave of green and brown and blue, with water slashing out to the sides and Kyoshi Warriors turning aside the attacks of the Dai Li.

But the Avatar is nowhere to be found, and that's worrying.

“I think they're getting too close,” Azula says. “It's time.”

“Your Majesty, we can hold them outside the walls—” one of Azula's guards says, but she cuts him off with a snap of lightning between her fingers.

“Let's go end this fight,” Azula says as the enemy firebender forces back a whole battalion of Dai Li at once. She turns on her heel. “Have the roof watch double up. The Avatar would be stupid to come in anywhere else.”

The Avatar is twelve. He might actually _be_ stupid.

Mai runs to keep ahead of Azula, and it's her and Ty Lee who reach the great doors together.

Ty Lee opens them and they all stand back as a torrent of fire screams through, so hot that the silk of her gown begins to shrivel and pucker, so hot that sweat instantly beads on her forehead ~~and she can't stop picturing Azula in the flame~~.

The fire lasts for several seconds, and when it stops, Mai sweeps around the door. The flagstones under her feet reek of hot rock, the bottom of her gown threatens to catch if she slows down, but she aims carefully and throws in seven quick flicks of the wrist as she crosses the opening. Her victim, a man with angry eyes and grey sideburns, one of Iroh's old freedom fighter gang, lets out a yell as three shots hit home, and then Azula follows her, sparks leaping and dancing around her. She barely even needs to wind up for the attack, just whirls her hands through the air and lets go.

~~The sound is awful.~~ Normally, Azula's lightning hisses and spits and crackles, but this is a _blast._ It's the difference between a mewling otter-kitten and a roaring moose-lion. The sound hits Mai like a physical thing, rocking her back as Azula twists, cackling, out of the way of an arrow. 

“How many of you are left?” she yells.

A jet of water answers her, slamming a few Dai Li against the far wall of the Grand Foyer, then hissing as it boils away from the floor. Mai crosses the gap again, sending seven more knives out into the fight. The firebender is down in a puddle of blood, Kyoshi Warriors scrambling to drag him back. One of the warriors takes a knife to the back of the neck and drops, but she doesn't see how successful the rest of her attack has been, and Azula is sliding back into the gap. Her footwork is all grounded, both feet on the floor as she moves, like an earthbender, and sparks dance along her fingers again and she laughs out another deafening boom. Mai's ears sting and throb. No arrows or water come through the door this time, and Mai rushes to the opening to see, throwing only three knives this time.

The firebender is still in his puddle. An old man in blue seems to have taken the brunt of Azula's last attack, lying crumpled and smoking halfway down the column of enemies. The column itself is split, half-scattered, the Kyoshi Warriors mostly to one side, Water Tribe Warriors and ragtag Earth Kingdom resistance fighters on the other, too spread out for lightning to continue devastating them.

“Flames,” Mai yells as she moves along, and Azula whirls back, sets herself, and thrusts out both palms. She leans forward and breathes flames as well, blanketing the courtyard in brilliant blues, and the screaming begins in earnest.

Maybe Azula had the right idea, sallying like this. It seems to be working.

Azula's breath begins to run short, and the heat near her is intense, so intense that she begins to back away. Mai sees the mistake for what it is and rushes in, knives drawn, into an oven.

Her silk puckered a little under the enemy's attack, but now it begins to smolder. An arrow flies out of the invading crowd. She swings to block and barely makes it, but it's enough. She can feel Azula moving out of danger, and she darts away as well, catching only a glimpse of a demoralized, beaten invasion.

And a single figure dropping out of the sky.

A figure in orange.

The Avatar. 

A rumbling roar signals the arrival of the Avatar's bison, and then there's a yelp. Outside, someone complains, “the ground is too hot!”

The doors slam shut.

Earthbenders. If it's possible for them to close the doors, then...

The Grand Foyer is large, but most of that is depth, not width. It barely goes past the twenty foot breadth of the doors, despite running nearly a hundred feet back into the palace. The sensible next move for their enemy is to rip the doors off of their hinges and throw them into the Grand Foyer, crushing anything in their path.

Ty Lee is hanging back, playing rear guard in case something goes wrong, but Azula is very nearly in the center of the Foyer.

Mai breaks into a charging run and catches Azula around the middle as the doors begin to creak and rattle. They sail through the air and slam hard against the wall moments before the vast palace doors rip from their hinges and fly down the length of the Grand Foyer. Behind them is a plume of fire, and Mai shields Azula with her body. Then, for a moment, everything is quiet. The warmth of Azula is cool next to the burning heat against Mai's back. Azula's breathing is the only thing that matters.

The Dai Li step into the fray from the palace roof and the halls as Azula claws at Mai's sleeve. For a moment, Mai wonders why Azula is trying to pull her gown off, and then she notices that she's _on fire,_ and in the cacophony of tiny chunks of rock whistling at inhuman speeds around them, Mai pulls her ruined gown off, leaving her in her armored, knife-studded undercoats. The burning, mostly-depleted gown is shredded by rocky spikes, and Mai winces briefly at the thought of what this assault must be doing to the enemy, then the spikes stop and she turns to look. A battered wall of stone has protected much of the enemy force, but in the brief quiet, there are howls of pain from behind it.

There aren't many howls of pain on her side anymore.

Azula smirks at her and squares off against the rock wall. She takes her time, rolling through the kata to generate lightning, and the concussion she lets out puts her previous shots to shame, blowing a hole through the wall big enough to see the Avatar and his team, the earthbender, the Water Tribe girl, and... 

“Is that Admiral Jeong Jeong?” Mai says quietly.

The tiny earthbender kid gestures, and the wall closes, and then there's even more rumbling.

“Go after them,” Azula orders the Dai Li, and Mai realizes the enemy has gone underground. Dai Li swarm into the earth, tunneling and searching, and they might just capture or kill this entire force. 

A distant rumbling tells her that hope may be unfounded. One of the palace guards knocks down the wall with a few gestures, and Mai steps forward into the wreckage of the fight. They've left their dead behind, or at least some of them. That old waterbender looked fairly crispy, but he's nowhere to be seen, and the firebender couldn't have been long for this world, but they've taken him, too. Mai counts ten bodies lying on the flagstones, but she's sure of at least twice that many kills.

“Check how many of their dead they left under the courtyard,” Mai orders, and she turns to find Azula leaning casually against the vacant doorjamb. She approaches with as much dignity as a girl in a still-smoking armored inskirt can muster. “How bad is the leg?” Mai asks quietly.

“It's fine, Mai,” Azula says.

“No it fucking isn't,” Mai reasons.

Azula lets the perfect face fall for just an instant. Mai reads her. She could go another few rounds with the invaders if she had to, but it's bad. Mai grabs her hand and throws Azula's arm over her shoulder, walking her to the throne room and giving orders on the way. By the time they're settled and Mai is changed out of her charred last-resort layer into her new favorite gown (the old one being a pile of ash with two throwing knives in it), the reports are trickling in.

General Iroh has attempted an escape and is immobilized.

The Avatar's team has been chased out, with some wounds but nothing fatal.

The invaders have left Ba Sing Se, helped away by General Sako and her “diplomats.”

At least the Dai Li have found another seven of the enemy's dead under the courtyard. Azula smiles at the report. The Avatar is still out there, and still a threat, but firebenders won't pose this much of a problem again until the comet comes back in another century, and nine of her political enemies were killed in the assault.

All Mai can think about is how close she came to running out of plays. Armor under armor, knives behind knives, and there were thirty left to throw, and Ty Lee still in reserve, but how many times can she save Azula's life?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last scene, in case you skipped it, is the attempt to retrieve Iroh, from Mai's perspective. The attack force gets pinned in the courtyard of the Earth Palace and is already having trouble when Mai and Azula show up and hit them with lightning and knives. Jee takes knife hits and goes down, Pakku takes a lightning blast, and Azula is getting ready to finish them off when Aang arrives to hold them off. Mai saves Azula's life twice during the battle, but despite the fact that Azula is put into check a couple of times, the attackers fail to meet any of their goals and are forced to retreat without Iroh or Azula.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: there is... a LOT of blood in this chapter. As I do when there's stuff that someone may need to skip, there'll be a description of what happened at the end. The last scene is safe, but also very short.
> 
> [Also: the relentlessly awesome pangodillO has drawn a beautiful piece of Sokka from one of the opening scenes of this whole series. Go check out their art!](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1910001)

Appa's fur is striped with blood, as is Chief Hakoda, and Aang, and Katara, and especially Jet. He cradles Jee's head in his hands as the man—one of the few adults who's ever been really good to him in his life—seems to vacillate back and forth between life and death like an indecisive customer picking out a tea. Hakoda's face is set in a deep frown as Katara works frantically.

It isn't just the knives. Three six-inch blades were buried in Jee's body, one in the chest, one in the right shoulder, and one in the neck, barely missing his windpipe and jugular. They sit, clean, next to Aang, who picked each one up and cleaned it off as they were removed, frantic in his movements. Those wounds would have brought him down on their own. There are also several broken ribs from earthbending attacks early in the fight, and he was hit with almost a dozen of the Dai Li's earthbending spikes, leaving little holes that bleed freely in spite of Katara's efforts.

No one has escaped unhurt, but Katara is the only one skilled enough to heal Jee's injuries on the move like this. Toph and Smellerbee are on one of the balloons, guarding the wounded who are in less danger, but Appa is faster and that's what it's going to take to save Jee: speed, and a lot of luck.

“Aang, more water,” Katara orders, and Aang draws up water from the sea below, swirling it and spinning it on the way up. Katara catches the bundle and adds it to what she has already used up healing Jee. The knife wound in his neck is nearly knitted. There's so much more wrong than that.

Jet turns to see the ship, and he tries not to grimace. The Earth Navy is giving chase, so their ship is fleeing, and Appa can't go any faster.

They'll get there, but the situation is adding treacherous minutes to their flight. Jee's pulse whispers against Jet's hand when he reaches for the soldier's neck, and he looks up to Aang's face, his throat tight. 

Aang's eyes dart away from his, and he pulls up more water and spins it around once or twice before pressing the water into Jet's right shoulder. He reaches out with a sharp motion with the hand that isn't holding the water, and a flashing agony rips through Jet's arm. One of the little plugs of rock soars away into the ocean, but before Jet can do more than twitch and yelp, the healing has begun, the soothing cold of Aang's water dulling away the pain. It's not as good as Katara would be able to do, but it helps a lot. Turbulence rocks them, and and the healing ends as Katara calls for more water.

Jee's heart is still beating when they arrive on the deck. Muda, Chief Hakoda's medic, runs up and shouts to old Tosrom and the younger, sturdier-looking pair, Nilom and Hik. Jet does what he can to ease Jee into the hands of the small team carrying him. Chief Hakoda hurries to meet the balloon that's managed to move somewhat ahead with Jeong Jeong rocketing it along. Piram and Bato jump out of the gondola before they're below ten feet off the deck. “Is he still alive?” Jet hears Bato ask before he follows the procession below decks. They startle the ship's pufferfish cat, which has to be rolled out of the way so they can pass. Jet catches Jee's wrist and feels his pulse, more the intimation of movement than anything else. 

The infirmary isn't far from the upper deck. They are approaching the door to it when Jee's heartbeat stops. 

Jet is forced to let go as they drag Jee into the infirmary.

“Jee?” Katara says. “No, no, no no no! Aang, I need—” but she is cut off when Muda closes the door. 

Jet slumps back against the wall, staring at the door.

+

The world is gray again. Stars speckle the sky in aching clarity above her, but all around her is a flat, featureless plain of level gray, like sooty snow. 

Yue has dreamed this place before, of course. Over her head swims Tui, whose scintillant form is adorned with countless fins, dancing elegantly among the stars. Some dreams of this place have been endless and tranquil, but eventless, just sleeping eternities with the Moon Spirit. Some have lacked the immediacy of contact with Tui, ordinary dreams in which her mother makes her fix the same pair of gloves over and over, or Hahn weeps and begs her to mourn him as she crosses the endless grey to escape his pleas. 

A very select few have been like this. All around her, spirits tumble and fly, swarming as though the whole universe can't hope to contain them all. In the distance, a bright spark flits around the sky, dancing with the tail of Sozin's comet. Behind her, a familiar voice says “speak to him.”

Yue turns.

A small army dots the plain behind her. At its head stands Jee. He is dressed in armor, but behind him, there are people in uniform, and in casual clothes, and even in silk nightwear. One or two bear grisly wounds. Jee, it seems, is bleeding freely from the wound under a hole in his right shoulder armor, and sluggishly from numerous little wounds dotted around his body. His blood, like that of the few others who bleed behind him—a Dai Li agent and a Water Tribe warrior—flows not down, but up, into the sky, where it swirls around Tui like a rusty aurora. 

“Speak to him?” Yue says.

“When you see Agni dancing, you're supposed to speak to him,” Jee says. 

“Listen to him, girl” Pakku says, shouldering his way to the front of the crowd. He is energized, agitated, dressed in his ceremonial master's garb, with an amulet other than his usual ostentatious official one around his throat. “He's right.”

Yue turns to look at Sozin's Comet. It is so distant. She looks back, but Jee and Pakku have both fixed their eyes on the comet.

Yue turns away and starts across the plain. It doesn't crunch like snow the way it does when she crosses it in ordinary dreams. Instead, it remains undisturbed beneath her feet. 

She wonders if she can fly, here. But first, she tries calling out. “Agni! Agni, please, can you speak to me?”

The spark cavorts onward around the comet's tail, and Yue leaps.

At first, she is sure she _can_ fly, but as she starts to slow down, she realizes that she can only jump remarkably high. “Agni, please!” she calls out.

Agni is not the spirit of her people. Why she must speak to him, she doesn't know, but as her feet touch the ground, she knows she must. She leaps again, calling out, and this time, something comes up beneath her. Tui, like a whirling mass of curtains, bears her up, towards the stars, towards the comet, towards a searing heat, and she calls out, again and again, “Agni! Agni, please speak to me!”

Flames leap up all around her. Two dragons, red and blue, formed out of the fires, circle each other. The red and the blue clash, but the blue dragon repels the red with sparks and lightning, and the red dragon backs away from its azure counterpart, hiding behind walls of fire in shades of yellow, green, purple, and pink. 

Slowly, the blood that has been circling Tui flows into the inferno, stretched like a cord between the dragons.

The blue dragon is surrounded by a rainbow of fire, pressing up against it, and slowly it is overwhelmed, and torn to pieces, and the red dragon curls up and withers away. The dragons reassemble themselves and the whole tableau repeats, and again and again, until finally, the red dragon emerges to resume their fight instead of staying behind his walls, and as he pins the blue dragon, the streams of blood wrap around them both like a cord. 

The flames begin go out, boiling away the blood, until only the two dragons remain, now circling in a dance instead of deadly combat.

Tui takes Yue back away from the comet and the heat, and Yue watches the Moon growing larger beneath her.

+

Bato leans against the wall between Jet and Hakoda. The rest of the wounded have been attended to as well as can be, but Katara and Muda haven't emerged from the infirmary in half hour since Muda kicked Hakoda out. Once in a while, Bato catches a stray sound from within, usually Aang shouting something.

Once or twice, there is a frustrated cry of _Zuko's_ name, which... does make a certain amount of sense, given that he's the one who was a skilled enough healer to patch himself back together in the middle of the series of vicious wounds Sokka took in the invasion of Caldera City.

Zuko has a history of healing fatal wounds. The implication is uncomfortable, and while Jin holds Jet's left hand, Bato holds his right, and Hakoda's left, a little chain of human contact. 

The door slams open, and Bato holds Hakoda and Jet both back from rushing through it to check as Katara emerges. She leans, exhausted, against the far wall, and wipes tears from her eyes. Bato's heart lurches, but then he sees the gentlest of glows from inside the infirmary. As Katara continues to cry, Aang is hunched over the prone form of Jee, water glowing under his palms. His face is bound up in concentration, and Muda watches him seriously, reaching under the Avatar's hands once in a while to do some little work on Jee's chest, and finally, the light under Aang's hands flickers and fades away. Water runs down Jee's chest, but there is little blood in it. Katara waves to the infirmary, and Bato drags Hakoda, Jet, and Jin forward.

“I just need a minute, Healer Muda,” Aang says, but Muda shakes his head. 

“No. You're done, Aang. Go sit with Katara.”

Aang stares at him. Streaked with blood, his hands covered to a little past his wrists, he doesn't look like the Avatar. He's just a lost kid. “I can still—”

“Aang! Go sit with Katara,” Muda snaps, and Aang darts out of the room. 

Bato approaches Jee's side, and he reaches out. Jee's hand is damp from the healing water and cold. He grips his wrist.

A thin, tentative heartbeat brushes against his fingers. Jet rushes forward before he can react and grips Jee's other wrist, then lets out a broken sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “He's alive!” Jet yells. Hakoda slumps against Bato's side, and the sobs travel from Jet to Hakoda and Bato and Jin.

“How?” Jin asks.

“Katara and Aang,” Muda says. “They haven't stopped bending for an hour and a half. Katara figured out she could bend the _blood_ in his heart when it stopped beating, Aang was bending air in and out of his lungs. They brought him back at least five times. Never stopped working. But he's been stable for half an hour, and I couldn't let them kill themselves helping him. It's up to the spirits now.” He swallows. “I take it we lost?”

Hakoda nods beside Bato. He chokes back his tears to answer, “badly. Azula used lightning against us, just a few times, but it tore our ranks apart. She... killed Pakku.”

“I was next to him when it happened,” Jin says. “I think it was pretty quick.”

Muda sighs. “Spirits. Fuck. How are we supposed to dig her out of Ba Sing Se?”

“We'll find a way,” Hakoda says grimly.

+

Yue's shoulders have stopped shaking under his hands by the time Zuko and Suki come back with hot tea and some light snacks. Sokka still strokes her bare skin, the way that helps him. Being abruptly awakened by a terrified betrothed jolting awake between him and Zuko has been... bad for his nerves, but Suki's arrival makes him feel immensely calmer already: she's probably the most competent person in the entire world, and she can probably fix anything.

Also she has sea prunes, which will help.

“Zuko,” Yue says when he sits down, “you have to stop Azula.”

“I know,” Zuko says. 

“No,” Yue says, _“you_ have to stop Azula. Until you're in the fight, she'll just kill anyone that tries to stop her. It has to be _you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter starts with Jin flying Appa while Hakoda, Jet, Aang, and Katara work to heal him. They get to the ship, and follow Jee into the infirmary to keep healing him.
> 
> After that, the next scene is Yue having a very ominous spirit-dream in which Jee seems to appear in spirit form while she is on the Moon with Tui, and advises her to talk to Agni, who is dancing around Sozin's Comet. Agni shows her a symbolism-heavy play using fire as puppets, with a red dragon and a blue dragon fighting each other, and both dying over and over until the red dragon confronts the blue one directly.
> 
> In the next scene, Bato waits outside of the infirmary with Jet, Jin, and Hakoda, and then Katara emerges, exhausted, and Aang is still healing Jee. The healer makes Aang stop, and they are all relieved to find that Jee is alive, thanks to the heroic efforts of Aang and Katara. Hakoda reveals that Pakku is dead.


	7. Chapter 7

Jee wakes up on their third day out from Ba Sing Se, and Toph... was not prepared for how relieved they would be when that happened. Their casualties are all horrifying, of course. Pakku towers above the others for his importance to the war (a war that is almost certain to start back up in earnest now that all the tiles are on the board), but he is far from the only one. Helak, one of Chief Hakoda's men, who was making terrible jokes in the mess the other day. Bulon and Sheko, a sweet couple who teased Smellerbee about maybe having a crush on Longshot, both gone. Pusru, Naroq, and Himak, three of the Northern Tribe's most renowned warriors. Bon Lin, a loss that has had all of the Kyoshi Warriors in deep mourning, lost protecting Sohi.

Somehow, among all that tragedy, Jee would have been one too many, and when he wakes up, Toph decides they aren't going to cry, and they take Smellerbee by the hand and go to a little hollow near the bow and they cry together anyway, which doesn't count because crying with your soulmate doesn't count.

“I hate this,” Toph says when their tears have dried for the last time ~~except all the times they'll come back, in the middle of the night or when Sohi gives someone that sad smile she does or the next time Sokka makes a joke that he definitely got from Helak.~~

“Losing?” Smellerbee asks. 

Toph quietly agrees, pressing their hand into Smellerbee's. “Yeah,” they lie. “That's it. I mean, losing... I don't lose. We lost _a little_ when Azula took over there, but this is just... a big huge loss. It's shit.”

Smellerbee leans on Toph's shoulder. 

With their feet off the deck, Toph doesn't feel what's going on in the rest of the ship very keenly, but they're not completely out of contact with everything, so they feel Katara about a minute before she comes into their little area. Toph decides not to change position. Katara already knows that they have feelings. Instead, to keep Smellerbee from getting startled, they say “hey Sugar Queen.”

Katara stops behind them.

“Uh. Jee wanted to know if you two are okay. You haven't said hi yet.” Katara sits down on the other side of Toph from Smellerbee. “But if you're not up for that I can tell him you jumped overboard to go fight a turtlewhale.”

Toph pretends to consider that for a moment. “Did I win?”

“Would I ever tell him you didn't, oh Blind Bandit?”

Smellerbee laughs a little. Toph sighs. “Is Jee done making out with your dad yet?”

“One, gross, and two, no, they haven't started because I told Dad that if he opens up any of Jee's wounds, I'll freeze him to the hull.” 

“After you threw him off of Appa, he knows you will.” Toph heaves an even bigger, more exasperated sigh. “I'll go say hello. I bet that giant baby wants a hug.”

“Do. Not. Hug. Him. I'll freeze you to the hull, too.” But Katara puts a little embrace of her own at the end of the threat, so they know it's a _loving_ threat, which is the best kind of love and also the best kind of threat. Toph gets up, holds out a hand to Smellerbee, who takes the help, and starts towards the infirmary. 

Part of what's nice about taking their feet off the deck is not knowing the ways people are dealing with the loss. Now that they're walking around again, they have to deal with it all: a few rooms away, Jet and Jin are... forgetting their troubles together. Just next door to them, Hik and Nilom are on what is probably their third bottle of what is probably not milk. On the other side of the ship, Sohi is making Imbon and Wori drill her even further on defensive fighting, as though she can bring back Bon Lin if she just fights hard enough. Bato and Hakoda are in with Jee, hands together and talking low enough that Toph can't quite make out what they're all saying to each other. 

Toph announces their arrival by bursting in the door and exclaiming, “all right, Pincushion, you get _one_ affectionate gesture, and Sugar Queen says no hugs!”

Jee laughs. “Toph! I'm glad you're here.” He turns his face towards Hakoda, then towards Bato, and they both get up to give him some time with Toph and Smellerbee, already starting to talk about Jee's health with Katara as they go.

“So does Sparky need a new prime minister, or are Chief Dad and The Mountain taking their time with inviting you to live in their village?” Toph takes Hakoda's vacant seat and squeezes Jee's arm affectionately. ~~He feels way colder than a firebender should.~~

“You're never subtle about the gossip,” Jee complains. “You're worse than General Iroh.”

“They know,” Smellerbee says, “but you're helpless, so spill.”

“Well, I'm glad you all care about my love life so much. It's nice to know that I'm the best entertainment on the ship.”

“You _are,_ though,” Toph says.

Jee makes a somewhat parched-sounding smile-noise, and Toph gets up to grab him a glass of water. “We talked about it. They were... co-husbands with Sokka and Katara's mother. Bato made a lot of noises about doing the same thing with me, and Hakoda made a lot of noises about being cautious and taking it slow and then he admitted that's where he wants it to end up.”

“So you're moving to the Southern Water Tribe next year?” Smellerbee says as Toph finishes filling up a cup at the little basin in the corner. They cross the room back to him with the cup and he takes it with a quiet thanks.

“No. Actually, we were just discussing how to have a relationship and still serve our people. Hakoda thinks—” 

Before Jee can say what Hakoda thinks, there's a lot of shouting and Toph catches a word they weren't expecting: “balloon,” someone says just at the range of their hearing, and then closer, someone says “balloon,” and the word spreads closer until they can all hear it and Katara bursts in. “There's a balloon coming from up ahead. A Fire Nation war balloon. They're flying the White Lotus standard.”

Toph frowns. “So they're probably friends?”

Katara nods. “Aang is going up to check. Come on, let's go see.”

Toph directs their face pointedly off to Katara's side. “You're right! I gotta see this!”

Katara doesn't hesitate. “Yeah, you do. Just wait til you get a look.”

Toph pats Jee's hand. “Wait here, Pincushion. They might need me up there.” They turn back to Katara. “You know, just because I started it doesn't mean you need to be clever back at me,” they complain, but they're already moving, and they get to the upper deck just as Aang touches down again.

“It's Zuko and Sokka,” Aang says. “They left Suki and Yue in charge of the occupation force because they needed to meet up with us.”

Huh.

That probably means interesting things are about to happen.

+

Zuko hops down off of the balloon and does his best to ignore the staccato thumping of his entourage jumping down after him. Sokka hurries up next to him as Aang rushes forwards for a hug. Saiyun steps around in front of him to block Aang's path and Zuko sighs, “he's the Avatar, Saiyun. Let him through.”

The guard blushes, and Aang steps forward to hug Zuko tightly. A few paces behind him is Katara, wrapping him up in a similarly tight hug. “What are you doing here?” Katara asks. “I mean, not that we don't want you, but what's wrong?”

“First things first,” Zuko says. “Where's Jee? Is he alive?”

Chief Hakoda comes looming up out of the crew. “He's alive. He won't be fighting again anytime soon, though.”

Zuko nods. “Okay. Let's go. You, Bato, Aang, Katara, Toph, Smellerbee, Jet, Jin, Sokka, and me. We have to plan, and I need Aang for...”

“Spirit stuff,” Sokka fills in. 

“Spirit stuff,” Aang repeats as Hakoda leads them off towards the superstructure. 

“Yue had a dream,” Sokka says. He grimaces, scars making the expression lopsided. “She sat up really fast in the middle of the night and scared the turtleducks out of me and Zuko.”

As they slip into the corridors, a voice calls out to Sokka and a young man nearly gets the business end of a guard's spear before Sokka grabs the weapon out of its wielder's hands and growls, “everyone on this ship is trustworthy, Cheen!” He turns to the (slightly greasy) teen and adds “catch up later, Rahn? We'll have time, I'm sure.”

The halls of a Fire Nation ship are welcoming after so long in the open air and the palace, like a big, seaborne, steel hug. Zuko will probably never find the distant rumble of a giant engine anything but soothing. By the time they're all gathered in the infirmary (Jee is definitely a mess, but Jet, Bato, and Hakoda all line up around him, Bato holding his hand, Hakoda playing with his hair, and Jet standing ready to protect him), Zuko has let the corridors and the rumble and Sokka's hand and the presence of his closest friends burn away the gnawing trepidation that's dominated the last few days.

“We lost badly, didn't we?” Zuko says. “Pakku died?”

Jee nods and Hakoda tugs gently on his hair, making a scolding noise. “I won't break because I moved my head, Hakoda,” Jee says, but he's smiling. 

~~Okay, that's really fucking cute.~~

“It was Azula,” Bato says. “We were almost to the doors, and from there, we could have pushed through and gotten Iroh out, but... how do you counter lightning?”

The temptation is there. Sokka once told him that he'd drag them off to a soulmate cabin in the middle of nowhere if he had to, and Zuko would love, so dearly, to grab his friends, to let Azula have the rest of the world and just live in secret obscurity with the people he loves. Maybe, one day, he'll be able to have his obscurity, but right now, there's a job to be done. _”You_ don't. I do. I've seen it done.”

“The storm,” Jee breathes. 

“Storm?” Jin says.

“Not long before Zhao” Bato and Hakoda spit on the deck “sank the _Snapdragon,_ we weathered a storm, and Crewman Naseek nearly fell off the observation deck during the worst of it. While Katara and Aang were helping to rescue him, General Iroh redirected a bolt of lightning that would have hit the ship.” Jee smiles wryly. “It takes a master firebender to make lightning, someone with more skill and focus than I'll ever have. The Fire Sages have never agreed about whether it's even possible to do anything about being targeted with it.” He shakes his head. “But if you've only ever seen it done...”

“I asked about it, right afterward,” Zuko says. “Uncle said it was a technique he learned by studying waterbenders and learning to control the flow of his chi.” He lets his eyes drift shut as he admits “he said I wasn't ready for it.”

“You barely knew how to waterbend when that happened,” Sokka points out.

“Even if I am ready, I would still need him to teach me,” Zuko says. He forces his eyes open again. “I wouldn't bring it up, except that... Yue's dream. She saw Tui and Agni and all the people who died in that fight. And—” 

“And me?” Jee volunteers. “I don't remember much about... it... but talking to Yue sounds right.”

“She said Agni showed her Azula destroying everyone else and herself if Zuko stays out of the fight.” Sokka leans against Zuko's shoulder. “I wish the spirits would actually help instead of just telling us what to do, but at least that one seems like a pretty clear message.”

“But I barely even know what inspired Uncle to learn how to redirect lightning,” Zuko says. “Who else is as good at firebending as he is?”

“Oh,” Aang says in a very small voice. Everyone turns to look at him. “Um. Guru Pathik said I should go with my teacher to 'Masters Ran and Shaw.' Does anyone know what that means?”

Sokka stiffens. He's spent some time in the palace archives, and if anyone is going to know where to find two obscure firebending masters, it's him. “Zuko, do you remember when we were trying to convince your crew that we could take on the Unagi, and Uncle kept telling people how he killed a dragon?”

“Two dragons,” Zuko says, because when he had nightmares about his father c ~~oming to finish the job, not long a~~ fter the Agni Kai, Uncle used to say that unless Ozai was more powerful than two dragons, he wasn't going to hurt Zuko.

“When he told the story in the mess, he said their names were Ran and Shaw.” There is a sort of vicious smile in Sokka's voice when he adds, “the place where every dragon was killed is in the Palace Archives.”

+

The best thing Azula can be, as far as Ty Lee understands, is dismissed. Not that it's nice to have people think less of you, it's just that other people, namely their enemies, have a bad habit of thinking Azula, and by extension Mai and Ty Lee, is just a little girl.

Azula is a little girl _who can throw lightning around._

When people think Azula isn't a threat, they learn how wrong they are all at once and in such a violent way that they don't usually come back for another lesson, and the thing is, that's more important now than it ever has been before. Within a week after the attack, the doors are back on the palace, the courtyard is pristine once more, and a careful propaganda campaign has kept riots over the information the balloons dropped on the way in to a minimum. 

But Azula hasn't walked anywhere on her own since they went back to the throne room after the fight. Vast halls lined with green and brown tapestries feel confining and ominous, all the luxury buried under Mai's concern and Azula's frustration at her own leg. Ty Lee is no waterbending healer, she can help with pain, maybe even soothe away some inflammation if she manipulates Azula's chi points just right, but the damage itself is well beyond her.

“Let me _walk,_ dammit!” Azula snaps at Mai as Ty Lee shadows them down the hall towards Azula's private bedchamber. 

“The healers—” Mai begins.

“Fuck the fucking healers!” Azula takes a few steps away from Mai, and if Ty Lee were to concentrate, she's sure she would see Azula's aura, shot through with goldenrod agony, flickering with effort like a candle flame. Azula grunts in obvious pain, but when Mai goes to support her, she pushes her off and stumbles in reaction, trying to keep her balance. She makes her way to her room alone and slams the door behind her.

Mai steps back to where Ty Lee stands. “You're worried,” Ty Lee says.

Mai nods. “I swear she's going to try to fight this entire war by herself.”

“She can't,” Ty Lee says. “I mean, she really can't. She can't stop you and me from helping.”

“She almost died. Twice, just defending the palace.” Mai starts towards the kitchens. That might not be where she's actually going, but when they talk, she likes to wander, and this is her usual route. “How do we end this fight fast enough that nobody actually manages to kill her?”

Ty lee looks up at the ceiling. “We'll have to do a lot of attacking. Defending isn't going to work. I guess we'll have to take down the Avatar, and probably Zuko. I bet Iroh would have some good advice.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “You should surrender, and then the fight will be over,” she says in an exaggerated impression of the old man.

Ty Lee laughs. “Azula isn't going to surrender.”

“Right,” Mai says. “So neither do we.”


	8. Chapter 8

Appa is fast. The list of things that can move faster than Appa is very, very short, and this is good, because by the time he is taking off with Sokka, Katara, Aang, and Chief Hakoda, they've started hearing some scary things about what Azula is doing. There very much _is_ a war in Ba Sing Se right now, and with the entire city switching from desperately pretending there isn't to building up the resources, forces, and training to fight it, things are getting... scary.

People try to hide scary things from Aang sometimes. It's just a side effect of not even being quite thirteen years old yet, and Zuko constantly has to remind himself that Aang is the Avatar, and he has to fix these things. This is something he should be talking to Aang about, and besides, Aang almost certainly already knows. A few short weeks ago, they _broke_ the Fire Nation, and the same thing hasn't happened to the Earth Kingdom. Azula faces an uphill battle, but Chief Hakoda is worried, and that means that she has a very real chance of rolling back all their forces, of building an empire out of a kingdom. 

~~Father would be proud of her, assuming he knew how to be proud.~~

“You're worried.” Zuko settles next to Aang on Appa's head. Momo is riding on his shoulder, where he's been for almost the entire three days since he and Sokka landed on the ship. The lemur is curled up, with his tail wrapped around Zuko's neck. The tail flicking at his throat is very annoying, but he can't bring himself to move the creature. “You know, if Guru Pathik thought you should look for Ran and Shaw, he probably means that we'll find people who can help us where they used to be.”

Aang shakes his head. “I'm not worried about that. It's just... your sister. Zuko... can she win?”

Zuko takes in a deep breath. His gaze skips over the clouds. “Yes.”

Aang and Zuko both sit in silence for a while. There, right on top of Appa's head, the air is almost totally still, and Momo's soft snoring interrupts the silence in a regular rhythm. Zuko sinks his left hand deep into Appa's fur. 

“Can we stop her?” Aang asks.

“I don't think Agni and Tui would be talking to us if we couldn't,” Zuko says. “But it really feels like we can't, doesn't it?” He leans back, looking up at the endless blue above them, and Aang speaks with him when he adds, “I really miss Uncle right now.”

They both laugh. “Uncle would say we shouldn't miss him,” Aang points out.

“I lived with him for three years. Uncle would say something dumb about tea and then we'd spend an hour wondering if there was some secret lesson in it.” Zuko touches a hand to Aang's back. The Avatar is tense. “I've never been good at knowing if there was a secret lesson.”

“I think you're better at it than you think you are,” Aang says. “You're just stubborn, too.”

Zuko shrugs. “I don't like it when things change. Especially my mind. That makes learning hard.” He looks over the side of Appa's head and nods. “Drop below the clouds here. I think we're getting close.”

Aang signals Appa to descend, and behind them, Katara and Hakoda let out simultaneous sounds of dismay. Zuko's good eye wanders the landscape until he spots it in the distance, the ring of mountains that's supposed to surround the old Sun Warrior city where Uncle defeated the great dragons.“Turn that way,” he says, pointing. “We'll probably get there after dark. Go hang out with your _girlfriend,”_ he adds, happily relishing the word. Since Sokka has been gently, joyfully teasing Katara since he found out she and Aang are dating (insofar as soulmates date: it's not like their compatibility is a mystery), Zuko has done his best to do teasing as well, and it makes Aang smile every time. He hands over the reins and as Zuko gets adjusted, he climbs back into the saddle. Katara is just wrapping up the story of how they got Toph to join their little family.

“So then, Toph said—oh, hi Aang—that finding their soulmate 'better be worth it,' as though Sokka and Zuko weren't all disgustingly in love right in front of them.” Zuko rolls his eyes.

“Katara, you're literally cuddling your boyfriend right now,” Sokka says in tones of irritation. “Which is good!” he adds, and Zuko turns briefly to see his soulmate's hands raised defensively to forestall any scoldings. “I'm just saying, glass houses.”

“Yeah, but Aang and I aren't gross and we don't jerkbend on Uncle's tea counter.” 

“Excuse me?” Chief Hakoda says.

“She can't prove anything,” Sokka snaps.

As Katara remarks on the notion that the only more incriminating thing Sokka could have said was “it was _one time,”_ Zuko starts them back up through the clouds.

A few hours and several embarrassing conversations later, those mountains are a lot closer, and there's _fires_ on them, laid out in glittering squares on the ruins that Sokka described when they started for this place. A ways to the north, the sea is barely visible, moonlight twinkling off of waves. 

Zuko takes them towards the top of the big, tiered city ruins. He lands Appa delicately, and it definitely isn't his fault when flames come shooting out of the darkness; the firebenders were obviously waiting for them in ambush.

+

Momo shrieks and chitters in alarm, climbing down Zuko's back in the orange light of the sudden attack, and Katara reaches for her bending water as the lemur grabs a curved knife out of Zuko's belt and flits off into the night. There's precious little water this high up, and they'd be at a pretty nasty disadvantage if it weren't for the fact that Aang is the Avatar. Walls of stone come up around them in a few quick thrusts, and Appa groans a loud protest. There's a yell, muffled by the stone, and someone shouts “get it off me! Ow, what the _fuck! Where did it get a knife?”_

Another burst of firelight sends Momo, slightly scorched, back over the wall, this time without Zuko's knife. 

“You're not Fire Nation,” another voice says, and this one sounds confused.

“We're not,” Dad yells. “Can we _please_ not fight until we're all sure we want to kill each other?”

Sokka laughs, up on Appa's head.

“Okay,” the voice says.

Aang brings down one of the walls, and six men, bare-chested, with hair done up like Zuko's was when they first met, gather up in the opening. One of them has a long, shallow cut from the bottom of his stomach on the left to his right shoulder. “I'm a waterbender,” Katara says. “I can heal that.”

Momo makes a few offended noises, but Katara hops down and approaches with her bending water when one of the men nods. “Who are you people?” another man asks, waving Zuko's knife as though the question needs emphasis.

“I'm Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe,” Dad says while Katara begins healing Momo's victim. This wound wouldn't have killed the man, but he would probably have been out of the fight. “This is my daughter, Katara, and her soulmate, Avatar Aang, and that's my son, Sokka, and his soulmate... um... Fire Lord Zuko.”

Everyone tenses up. A few of the flames held by the firebenders flare dangerously. “I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that my sister is currently healing someone that our psycho knife-monkey wounded when people started throwing fire around,” Sokka says. “We really don't want a fight.”

“We're here to stop the fighting,” Dad says. “We recently defeated Fire Lord Ozai and installed Zuko in his place, and right now, we're working on a way to get his sister out of Ba Sing Se.”

“I was sent by a guru named Pathik to find masters Ran and Shaw, who are supposed to teach me about firebending and help me learn to use the Avatar State,” Aang adds. The fires flare again.

“They know of Ran and Shaw,” the man Katara is healing says. She steps back to inspect her work.

“Don't move it too much for the next couple of days,” Katara advises, interrupting what seems like it was going to be a tense conversation with what she hopes will be another useful reminder that they're all, hopefully, on the same side.

_~~There is way too much hope and not enough confidence in this ancient ruin tonight.~~ _

Before anyone else can say anything, footsteps rush up the steep stairs leading to their platform, and a man in an elaborate headdress with a sort of abbreviated cloak draped over his shoulders approaches. One of the men, the one with the knife, hurries to speak to the newcomer as a whole entourage appears behind him.

They speak in hushed tones for a few moments before the man in the headdress steps away from his advisor and clears his throat.

“My name is Di Emuk. I'm the chief of the Sun Warriors.” The man in the headdress—Chief Di Emuk—points to Aang. “You claim he's the Avatar? Prove it.”

Aang bends the earth up next to him, then reaches for what's left of Katara's bending water. She lets him have it, and it floats around his head and then back to her. Next, he stirs the air around the chief's headdress, and finishes off with a shrug.

Chief Di Emuk turns to his people and they begin an animated, but very quiet conversation. Katara moves back to hold Aang's hand. “Did you know there were people here?” she asks Sokka.

“Katara, if I'd known there were people here, I wouldn't have suggested landing in the middle of the city. Now we look like jerks.” Sokka tries his best to pout, but he's visibly on edge, his sword (a very nice one, probably brand new) clutched in one hand and his boomerang in the other.

“You must face a test,” Chief Di Emuk says at last, turning from his people, “and we must count your scars. But let us have peace. Come with me, and my people will feed you and show you where you may sleep tonight.”

+

This whole day has been terrifying. Explaining to the Sun Warriors that _yes, I have more scars than Katara, but look at the ones we_ do _have in common_ and _no, Zuko isn't like his forefathers, that's where the face burn comes from_ and _I didn't mean to sit out most of the war, I just thought I was running away from my responsibilities_ has been nerve wracking, and then being forced to learn a complicated set of _very_ nonstandard firebending katas with Zuko has left him so exhausted that he keeps feeling like the little fire he's been entrusted with is going to die in his hands.

At least he knows how to carry it. At least it stays lit as they trudge up the stairs together. Sweat is dripping down Aang's back, the flames are overheating his front, and he turns to see Zuko looking equally exhausted. He looks a little further, behind them, and Katara, Chief Hakoda, and Sokka are all watching with worried eyes. He looks back to the stairs ahead, focusing on his fire.

There are caves at either end of the long platform they're climbing up to.

“This is weird, right?” Aang asks.

“Probably not to them,” Zuko says, gesturing over his shoulder at the Sun Warriors.

They get to the top of the stairs, and Aang looks to the cave off to their left, then the right. There's a sound, a blast from a deep horn, and Aang faces the cave to the left. Something deep within the cave makes a booming noise. Dust falls from the cave mouth.

And then... a huge form bursts out of the darkness. “Oh shit,” Zuko says as the dragons (dragons?) emerge from the caves at either end of the huge platform, one at a time. The two huge, serpentine creatures spread vast wings, and the wind of their passing rocks them both on their feet. 

“Dancing dragon?” Aang says. The dragons are circling them, and Aang is terribly sure he is going to be killed. He feels Zuko back up to him, and together, they run through the steps of the dancing dragon kata, all while the dragons circle them.

“If you are worthy,” the chief said, and Aang isn't feeling very worthy right now. They come together for the end of their dance, and Aang trembles. The dragons slip below the platform, and flames erupt around them.

The fires are mottled, like what Uncle used to show them when Zuko was having some problem with a waterbending concept in the Northern Water Tribe. There is green and blue, purple, yellow, red, orange, and magenta, rich depths of color that swirl around them, and it is beautiful. 

This is firebending, not as it is practiced by Ozai's men, or even as it is practiced by Uncle, the Fire Sages, or the Sun Warriors. 

Firebending does not come from the muscles, or even, as Uncle and Zuko and Jee and Jeong Jeong claim, from the breath—although attempting to explain where it does come from would be almost impossible, and Aang would likely say it's the breath as well—but rather, it comes from the same place as all bending: the chi, the heart, the soul. Fire is energy, it is joy and warmth and terror and destruction and life and beginning and end and all other things.

Aang looks down at his hands, imagines the flames of the dragon coming from them, and he startles: his tattoos are glowing, not much, but a little. It makes sense. They follow the path of his chi, and he is surrounded by so much chi right now, as the flames grow hotter and more dangerous, and then, all at once, the dragons stop breathing fire. Aang leans back against Zuko.

“I think I get it,” he says.

“Me too,” Zuko responds. 

One of the dragons, the red one, thunders up to the platform and rests its head so that its nose is only a few feet from Aang. He can feel the heat boiling off of it, but he isn't afraid anymore. He steps up to the dragon, and one of the long whiskers comes forward from the dragon's face and wraps around his waist. Aang gasps, because the whisker is still searing hot, and distantly, he can hear Katara scream, but he takes hold of the heat and siphons it away from himself.

Ebb and flow, rise and fall, flames leap and pool like water, and the dragon flows with them. They dance like the air, they run through the bones of the earth, and here, at the center, is Aang, the Avatar, bridge between worlds, hub of all things, spirit and human, energy and matter, and what is one but the other, really? Each human being is a soul, some afire and some rooted in the ground, some soaring through the air and some playing like brooks across the surface of the world.

Some great insight lies just out of reach, somewhere deep within the dragon's heart, but here, in the heat of this contact, he reaches out, and he can grasp the very corner of it. Fire is not unlike water, and he recalls, so long ago, in the Northern Water Tribe, the edge of this same understanding, Zuko's chi like a stream under his hand, almost something he could reshape, feeling every connection, each flowing path of energy and fate, and _what does a bender bend but chi?_. His hand touches the dragon's burning snout (this is Ran, ageless from the age of spirits), but just for now, no fire can burn him.

Ran retreats, releasing him, and vanishes back into its cave. Aang looks down. The dragon's whisker has left stripes on him, not the angry red of a fresh burn, but a bright rainbow color spray across his skin.

He and Zuko are both breathing hard, and they stare at each other. Zuko laughs, just a very quiet chuckle. “We almost died,” he says.

Aang shakes his head. “I think... I think I'm starting to understand.”

“I'm never going to be able to explain this to anyone,” Zuko says.

“No,” Aang says. “Me either.” He smiles. “But I understand it.”


	9. Chapter 9

There is a lot of good to be found in spending time with Azula. This has been objective fact for most of Mai's life. Even before Azula was the crown princess, she was still in line for the throne, so Mai's family has always encouraged her to be close to Azula. 

And Zuko, but that's a little less relevant right now, what with being on opposite sides of a war.

With Azula, though, there's an extra wrinkle to it, because unlike the friends Mai has made for political gain in other places, with Azula, she _means it._

(Her friendship with Ty Lee has always been completely genuine; their families are largely irrelevant to each other and they met when they almost killed each other fighting over one of those tiny hors d'oeuvres at a party, and the two best ways into Mai's heart are to seem like you're worth protecting and to be hideously dangerous)

The thing about Azula, though, is that she's one of maybe five people in the world who _notice_ when Mai makes a joke. She has to be cold and harsh to her underlings, but she's a masterful politician, and part of that is knowing the people around her very, very well, so she spots Mai's jokes, and takes care not to bruise her ego too much, and Mai is _aware,_ of course she's aware, that she is being handled with calculated care, but Azula also fucks up and gets it wrong and oversteps the limit sometimes, which is, ironically, how Mai knows that she cares. 

Azula never shows that she's less than perfect to people she doesn't care about and trust, like ~~her father,~~ the Dai Li guards, or the Earth Kingdom nobles who have stayed loyal. Mai, on the other hand, has seen her trying to learn new firebending techniques, and living with incredible pain, and even sleeping.

It's a little strange that Azula's version of caring is to be imperfect, but it makes sense, given her family. A brother who chronically betrays her. A mother who reviled her. Ozai.

And then there's Iroh. 

He sits on the floor now, because the guards have let him have a few things in exchange for good behavior. There is a stone bed at the other end of his cell, and he has a few blankets and cushions, but nothing he could really cause damage with. There's a pai sho board in the center of the room, and he stares at it with the same flinty intensity he offers to war plans and people he doesn't respect.

It takes him twenty minutes to say “I think this game goes to you.” He clears the board with a sweep of one strong, toned arm. The guards say he has been exercising to fill time, and it's obviously working: Iroh is still very much shaped like a barrel, but it's become very clear that he is a _stout, sturdy_ barrel. As he sets up the board again, he says “you are troubled.”

“I'm always troubled,” Mai says.

“I think that you are worried about Azula. I know what she did on the day of the comet. That was dangerous, especially since she is not yet used to her leg. The wound has not even finished healing, and she insists on fighting.” Iroh makes his first move. The Lotus Opening, as always. “You care for her, and so you do not want to see her hurt, but you also care what she thinks of you, and so you do not want to restrict her freedom.”

Mai counters his opening by starting up the Noble's Magnificent Mansion defense. They are each about five moves deep in their strategies when he speaks again.

“I had the same problem with Zuko, but I was fortunate. He has a soulmate, and that is a very powerful way to steer him to the right path.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “A soulmate would only slow Azula down.”

Iroh laughs, a deep, genuinely mirthful sound. “Even if I had never met anyone with a soulmate, I would know you are wrong, but I have evidence, as well. Sokka's fight in the Fire Lord's throne room is already a legend, and I suspect that Jet would be dead by now if he did not have a soulmate.” He shakes his head. “That doesn't mean that people with soulmates are better than other people, though. I think it is the fact that they must work together to survive. You may prefer that Azula stays in one piece, but you will live if she does not. Imagine if, in order to survive, she had to make the world a safe place for you, and you had to make the world a safe place for her. When people help each other, the world becomes a better place around them.”

Mai sighs. Iroh has a habit of coming around to this conclusion. It is at the heart of his philosophy of government, and of his rules for living, and, she suspects, of his whole self. “Is there a point to this?”

“Only that if you wish to help Azula, you must always remember that of her and her ambitions, the more important will always be her. After all, she cannot enjoy what she desires if she loses herself getting it.”

“What if saving her from herself was an excellent way to get killed?” Mai asks.

“In this family? That seems to be a running theme.”

+

When Appa touches down on the deck, Toph stands up and starts hurrying towards their friends before they can even really tell if they're all there. 

They pelt across the deck and smack into Zuko the moment he is down. 

“Uh, hi,” he says.

“Hi Toph,” Sokka adds. “I guess you missed us?”

“You left us here with _Jet and Jin!_ Do you know how much those two talk about the future?”

“Ew. I'm sorry, we should have taken you away from the responsible people,” Sokka says while Aang twinkles his toes on down to the deck behind Katara and Chief Hakoda. They're talking about some spirit thing or another and Toph tunes out the conversation, letting go of Zuko to punch Sokka on the arm. He flinches. Good.

“That's not it! It's that their plans are all awesome, and we can't do _any_ of them right now.” Toph shakes their head. “Half of them would be great for fighting a war with the Earth Kingdom, but we're 'only fighting Azula' and 'shouldn't turn to banditry,' which is ridiculous.”

“Toph,” Zuko begins.

“Relax, Sparky. Your boring prime minister talked me out of it anyway.” Toph starts towards the bow, where said prime minister is currently soaking up sunlight.

“Who let him out of the infirmary?” Zuko asks, and he's definitely turning an accusing look on Toph, they don't need to see to know that.

“Muda did. Uncle Lieutenant isn't full of holes anymore since we picked up one of the Northern Tribe healers, so now he gets to nap in the sun because every single firebender is a cat-otter.” Toph grins when Zuko makes an offended noise.

“I am not—“

“You're really more of a turtleduck,” Sokka interrupts, and Zuko starts spluttering.

He only splutters more when Jee adds, from up at the bow, “I'd recognize those angry turtleduck noises anywhere! Welcome back, Fire Lord Zuko!”

“We have to start planning,” Hakoda says.

Well, poo. That really brings the mood down. Suddenly everyone is quiet, and it's all the important people going down to the same war room that Toph is starting to get really, really tired of. They can't even _see,_ and they're getting tired of the color of the walls (which they have chosen to assume are bright purple, because everyone says bright colors kinda hurt to look at and “purple” is fun to say).

Aang steps up to the table covered in maps once everyone is in the room, and he clears his throat. “I think I might know how to get the Avatar State back. And... I might know how to stop Azula. But it's not something I can do fast and I don't know if I should. It involves... second guessing the spirits.”

“It also involves not killing my sister,” Zuko points out.

“You can heal this wound,” Aang mutters, so softly that most people probably can't even hear him over the chatter in the room. Katara rubs his back, and Toph wishes, for a moment, that they could look away: this moment feels intimate.

The next best thing is to distract everyone else. “We still have to get you close, don't we?”

Aang freezes up, then squares his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Then let's plan. There's a lot of asses between us and Azula, and I'm too lazy to kick all of them for you!”

+

Jet admits, quietly, to himself, that this is impressive. He still hates battles. The real ones, the ones like this, with armies and alliances and not being sure if he'll survive.

He also... really, really hates Ba Sing Se. He is going to live as far away from Ba Sing Se as he can, and he is going to never go back unless he absolutely has to and that's probably going to happen a lot because the universe hates him.

But it's still impressive.

The plan is simple: throw everything at Azula. They've lined the catwalks outside their war balloon with earthbenders, and those soldiers are deflecting stone after stone. On the bridge, behind a slightly-manic Sokka, Aang meditates and water swirls around him. Below, rampaging up out of the ground, the White Lotus follows behind King Bumi and a giant plant monster that is apparently controlled by a waterbender. To either side of that assault, Ba Sing Se resistance fighters spear in towards the Earth Palace. This attack is at least twice as powerful as what they brought down on the day of the comet.

Ba Sing Se is the impenetrable city, but it doesn't count if you go _over_ the walls.

That was the logic last time, too.

But fuck it. Jet knows fighting an impossible fight against unthinkable odds. He's done it over and over. Gaipan, the Rough Rhinos, Omashu, the Dai Li.... it's all the same unwinnable fight, but he hasn't lost yet.

And this time, Azula won't be able to throw around lightning that can rip through whole armies.

Hopefully.

Of course, that hope begins to fade when he spots her, emerging into the courtyard. She has her two scary girls with her. Jin grips Jet's arm tight. 

Azula slides one foot back, and she runs through a slow, deliberate movement. Sparks jump and dance around her.

The lightningstroke flashes to them, and not far away, Zuko reaches out and snares.

For a moment, the world is lit only by the electric fury in Zuko's hands. He cradles the lightning to his chest, exactly as though it is a precious gift offered out of love, his hands curled around the spitting ball of death, and then he thrusts it back away from him, into the courtyard below them, forcing Azula to dodge.

~~Jet cannot be blamed for having had a thing for Zuko.~~

Before Azula can recover her position, they have been overwhelmed by the earthbenders, and their war balloon is dropping faster than it should. They move on to the next part of the plan. Jet kicks the rope at his feet down over the side and drops down, sliding towards the courtyard. This isn't going to be a fun landing, but he'll survive.

Jin grabs the rope above him, and people begin scrambling down their ropes all around. Jet catches a glimpse of Sokka bursting out of the bridge, rushing towards a rope, and then...

The flash of blue-white light from inside the war balloon brings back that day in the middle ring, when they fought the Dai Li and won, against all odds. This time, though, when Aang emerges into the air, he is in perfect, unmistakable control. He glides down into the center of the Dai Li forces, a hurricane of precisely applied harm. Winds sweep around him, stones whip past him, and he lays into the Dai Li and Azula's enforcers and this _isn't the same as last time,_ this time they're taking the initiative, this time they might win, this time might just be different.

Jet's feet hit the ground.

This is still a battle. He finds a target and moves.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, endless thanks to [Miss Rust!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Rust/profile) You've been a huge help!

It's not as though Aang isn't helping. In fact, he's the reason they're not dead right now. It's just that he's controlling himself, and definitely not killing, and while that's an extremely impressive display of skill, it's slowing him down.

Sokka tucks his head and somersaults to his feet, coming up with his sword at the ready. A palace guard soldier, a nonbender, charges towards him, and a year ago, that would have been it. This guy is big, and unmistakably dangerous, and well-trained. Sokka doesn't meet the two-handed strike that arcs down at him. He ducks inside of it, slams an elbow into the guy's gut, and dances around him to land a blow on the back of the knee, a shot that will disable without killing.

If Aang can do it, so can he.

“I don't think they want us here,” Sokka says as he comes back up to Zuko's side.

“I think they're all afraid of my sister after what she did during the comet,” Zuko says. “Water please.”

Sokka grabs his hand and wills the waterbending over to him, then backs away as Zuko switches from throwing flames around to pulling the contents of reflecting pools into the fight, trading off the flow of fighting water with Aang and Katara. Huu's giant plant-monster suit (which is unreasonably cool in action) comes thundering across the battlefield. It's taken some hits, and there are chunks of stone and mud in it, but that doesn't exactly seem to be a _problem_ for the swamp bender, if the way he rampages across the courtyard means anything.

The multiple jets of fire coming from Azula's ranks does force him back, though.

Really, it makes sense that Azula wouldn't be the only firebender in her forces, but Sokka is surprised that she held the others back as long as she did. He grudgingly admits to himself, in between fending off the clumsy attacks of two earthbenders who probably didn't fight in the last battle, that it was clever strategy, holding a secret weapon in reserve that way.

It's so _annoying_ when the other side has a clever strategy.

Zuko slips past him and brushes a hand along his scarred left cheek, then starts towards Huu at a dead run. Sokka follows, because goodness knows his soulmate is going to get into huge amounts of trouble if he doesn't. A few earthbenders try to stop them, but Zuko is, and this is putting it very lightly, a force to be reckoned with.

Zuko leaps into the path of the flames, throwing them back at their sources one at a time. Huu's much-reduced plant monster begins to retreat, and Sokka takes the opportunity to climb up one of the huge (slimy) green legs to get a better look at the fight.

Azula is still fighting, a pained grimace on her face that he wouldn't recognize as pain if he didn't know her brother so well. Ty Lee and Mai flank her, and a small knot of Dai Li form a protective cocoon around them, raising and dropping walls of stone as they move in flawless synchronization with each other. Streaks and plumes of blue fire shoot out of their shelter, knives dart into chests and arms and legs, and Ty Lee bounces out at anyone who gets close, dropping them perfectly.

That would be a nightmare to take down even if there wasn't an army to contend with alongside it.

Sokka slides down the monster's leg and darts in front of Zuko. “This way,” he calls out as, finally, Aang moves in towards them, pushing the firebenders aside and opening the beginnings of a path. Toph emerges from the press on his left, a blurry green form that he has to turn to see properly. She and Smellerbee are bleeding from a cut on their right cheek, but it doesn't do anything to dampen their spirits. “They've got a—”

“Rock shell, I know. That's why I'm coming with you, unless you think Twinkletoes is enough to handle it.” Toph slips between him and Zuko and stomps forward with one foot. The ground between their little group and Azula rips up, and Aang might be the Avatar, but right now, Sokka thinks Toph has a point.

She moves like lightning, darting ahead and throwing up shields of rock to catch flames and knives, then, when she finds her moment to strike, it's brutal, locking Azula's shell of Dai Li into the ground in a few hard motions.

Mai steps up her attacks. Sokka thought she was a danger before, but with Azula threatened, she becomes a whirlwind of thrown knives. Toph moves to deflect and block, but then more Dai Li emerge from the briefly-parted crowd and her hands are full stopping assaults from the sides. “Sparky, Snoozles, Smellerbee, MOVE!” she yells. 

Sokka doesn't need to be told twice. He lurches out again into the battle, into the hail of fire and steel. 

Mai is moving like magic, missile after missile of hard-edged death into the fray, and each one strikes its target. Over and over, they have to duck behind Toph's barriers, or behind someone who's been thrown into the shrinking clear space. Sokka sees the moment Azula realizes who is charging her. She points and yells to Mai, and Mai takes aim and throws.

A knife sails towards them, towards Zuko, and Sokka feels his breath catch in his throat as it hits home.

Only the slimmest chance saves them, the knife digging so deep into the latch on the front of Zuko's armor that Sokka feels the prick of steel opening his soulmate's flesh, not a fatal blow, but a distracting one. Smellerbee pulls Zuko into shelter as a torrent of azure flames roars past them, and Sokka looks at Zuko from his own sheltered space.

Azula has made it clear she intends to kill her brother, and the hurt of it is a bottomless chasm of despair on Zuko's face. He won't kill her, even if he has to, even if it's the only way. His eyes flick to Sokka's, pleading, and Sokka isn't sure what Zuko is pleading for him to do, but he knows what he _has_ to do. The landscape of Zuko, which he is determined to preserve, writhes in agony of the spirit, but Sokka does not flinch, because this is more important than either of them. This is for the world.

He unlatches his boomerang from its holster, he peeks around the corner, and he swings it out into an arc, not the sweeping, returning arc he's learned to use as a distraction, but a real, hunter's throw, aimed at Azula. 

He wasn't the one to kill Ozai, but if it's between Zuko and Azula...

The boomerang flies true.

+

The Water Tribe boy, Zuko's soulmate (Sokka?), flings his boomerang, and Mai watches with growing horror. It is moving too fast. A thrown knife misses, and she leaps, throwing herself into the path of the boomerang. 

She barely makes it, feels the blade tear at her blouse, feels it smash into the armored layers beneath. The tips of a few knives poke through the chain armor into her skin, and the blow knocks her into Azula, but that's okay, because it didn't kill her and it didn't kill Azula. Her arms wrap around Azula, and for a moment they're face to face, nose to nose, and ~~she very much would like to~~ do this in a different context, thank you. Ty Lee is running across the battle behind her, and she whirls around to watch as the girl reaches Zuko. Zuko pulls his swords, and then Sokka comes to the other side of Ty Lee, and Mai stares.

The rebels from within Ba Sing Se are slamming into the other side of their ranks.

The Kyoshi Warriors are carving a hole into the back of the Dai Li forces, steadily advancing towards the palace doors.

The Water Tribe warriors are in the middle of the fight, surrounded by waterbenders and almost unhindered by the Palace Guard.

The Avatar is slowly growing less distracted by the wavering resistance.

The reign of Azula is about to end, and there is nothing Mai can do to stop it. All the calculated risks, all of this _amazing_ girl's strategies and tactics, all of their plans and all of their future, their struggles and the times it was easy, the broken leg and the broken hearts and the Earth Kingdom broken over their knees, and it's all going to be for nothing because this is the fight they can't win.

The boomerang finally works free of Mai's clothes and clatters to the ground.

“Azula, we're losing,” she says.

“No,” Azula growls. Mai risks a glance at her. “No,” she says again, and there is fire in her eyes and around her hands, every hair out of place, every little movement of her face a contortion of rage. “I don't lose. I don't lose, Mai.”

“You do this time,” Mai says.

Azula turns a furious look on her. “I _don't lose!”_

“Look around you, Azula! You've miscalculated. Just this once, you've gotten it wrong!”

Theirs is an island of peace for just a moment as the war rages around them. Azula stares, and under the anger is anguish. “No!” she screams again. “I haven't! I can't be wrong, Mai! I'll kill them all myself if I have to!”

She pushes Mai to the side and limps into the fight, her hands swinging up and spitting out a wall of blue light. Arrows and stones rush through the flames, and she is so _beautiful_ that Mai wants, dearly, to give her what she is asking for, but all that is in her power is to try and to fail.

She cannot enjoy what she desires if she loses her life getting it, and she _will,_ and... oh. 

_Oh._

This is what Iroh meant, and this is what Zuko feels looking at his Water Tribe boy, and this is what Mai has been fighting not to name, because she knows that what it takes to _love_ Azula is not what it takes to surrender to her or to be afraid of her.

She throws a knife and watches it plunge into the back of Azula's calf, in her good leg. A second joins it, this one in the bad leg, and she pins the collapsing Earth Queen (in name, in name, it could never have been forever, she would give her the whole world but Azula would die shouldering the burden) with a blade that pins her arm to the ground. 

“No!” Azula yells. The whole battle seems to freeze as Mai closes the distance.

“You miscalculated, Azula. I love you more than I fear you. And I can't let you die trying to fight a war on your own.” She kneels down and looks into Azula's eyes. 

“You betrayed me,” Azula growls.

“I am saving you, you idiot,” Mai says. Footsteps are approaching them, the first of the Avatar's people, Zuko and his friends, but Mai ignores them and holds Azula to her chest. “I love you, and I won't let you kill yourself in this... this pointless trying when you've already lost.”

Azula could kill her, but Mai watches the tears streaming down her face, and she can't help stealing one kiss, just one.

It's _maybe_ a surprise when Azula returns the kiss. “I hate you,” she whispers into Mai's lips.

“You'll get over it,” Mai predicts, and then there are stone cuffs around her hands, and Azula is wrapped in stone as well, and the battle is beginning to slow and die as the Dai Li realizes they've lost.

This is... 

Maybe this is okay.

+

It feels like a meltdown. It really, really feels like he is breaking down and losing control, his limbs too energized, his whole body vibrating. Aang almost regrets reaching into his own chi and untangling the knot that cut him off from the Avatar State. 

Almost.

But the thing is that he knows he has not killed anyone in this fight (he cannot say he hasn't injured anyone: there are broken bones and concussions and blood, but maybe now the blood on his hands can begin to wash away). As horrible as the Avatar State feels, and it truly does feel awful, it has helped him. He comes to stand in front of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, and he wonders exactly what it will take to bring this horror to an end.

It all seems so perfectly, terribly easy from the Avatar State.

“Mai,” Aang says, “you turned on her.”

“I didn't do it for you,” she shoots back. 

That's fair.

“You did it to protect her,” Aang says. “She wouldn't have survived the fight without you.”

Mai shakes her head. Aang turns to Azula, and Azula spits fire at him. He brushes it aside and stands, flat on his feet in front of her. “Fuck you, Avatar,” Azula growls.

“My name is Aang,” he replies, “and I'm not your enemy.”

“Pigbullshit,” Azula says.

Aang shakes his head. “I won't argue with you, Azula. You can keep fighting, or you can let me help you.”

Azula freezes. She peers at him through narrowed eyes. “Why would you help me?”

“Because Zuko is my friend,” Aang says. “Because even after you tried to have him killed, he loves you. Because I don't want anyone else to be hurt.” Aang shrugs. “Because I'm just a kid, and so are you, and we shouldn't have had to fight a war at our age in the first place and this is how we can stop it. Take your pick.”

Azula's scowl is thunderous. “You can't help me.”

“I can take you someplace safe and give you... and Mai... time to rest.”

The world pauses around them. Azula glares, and Aang forces himself to meet her eyes, so brilliantly golden they're hard to look at. It's a contest of wills, but Aang knows how to be stubborn. 

Apparently, so does Azula. It's not until a hand lands on her shoulder and Uncle's voice says “whatever he has offered you, you should take it” that she looks away.

“Fine,” Azula spits. “I'll take your fucking exile, Avatar.”

Aang looks up. Uncle's hair is long and greasy, and he seems to have gotten... really, really buff. He looks better than Aang would usually expect from a man who's been in prison for months. 

“Aang,” Uncle says, “The fight is over. Let go.”

Just like that, the Avatar State drains away from him, and he collapses, sobbing quietly, into Uncle's arms. His friends are gathered around, and they can take care of it. It may have been up to Aang to change the world, but not alone.

He doesn't have to do it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All that's left now is an epilogue!


	11. Chapter 11

“Quit fidgeting,” Toph scolds, and Jet lets out a long, loud sigh to let them know that he is _not fidgeting_ and also that if they would _let him keep fidgeting_ he would be a lot happier. 

They ignore him and finish fixing his ridiculous fucking shirt so that he can go and meet Zuko.

In front of a fucking crowd.

They've settled all the details, hammered out who gets what, and somehow ~~it's because of Jee,~~ Jet trusts that the Fire Nation will honor its agreements. And the Earth Kingdom, now that Kyoyo has turned the Dai Li inside out and King Kuei has turned Ba Sing Se's absolute dominion into a loose control. 

Of course, that means that, from Six Piers Burning down to Kyoshi Island, and for a hundred miles inland, the coast of the Earth Kingdom is going to be something new. Because the question has been, for almost a whole year since Azula's capture, what is to happen to the Colonies. You can't give them back to the Earth Kingdom without consequence; most of these towns are more Fire Nation than Earth Kingdom, and all of them remember being abandoned by Ba Sing Se. They can't be left in the Fire Nation's hands; Zuko himself has said that would defeat the point of ending the war.

So, independence. It's a solution that's more than a little...

“Uncomfortable,” Jet says.

“Yeah, but you look good,” Toph snarks.

“My stupid collar was so misaligned that _you_ could tell,” Jet grumps, but he can't snipe and grumble anymore because Smellerbee is gesturing him forward. He steps out past her and onto the wide stage they've set up in Cranefish Town. Zuko cuts a glance over at him and smirks. 

Yue, somehow even more graceful than usual while heavily pregnant (“oh yeah,” said Toph when they arrived, “those are twins all right. Go Sokka!”), smiles a bit less like she's remembering Jet doing something stupid. She's probably still thinking of the Sea Prune Incident like Zuko is, but she doesn't look like she is. Next to her, King Kuei smiles with all the genuine warmth of someone who has never seen Jet inhale a sea prune.

Arrayed in front of them is a crowd of three hundred, and they watch the ceremony in silence, while Zuko signs over the Fire Nation's claim, then signs onto the treaty to protect the Central Republic, and then Chiefs Hakoda and Arnook sign the treaty, then King Kuei, and Aang, and finally, Kuei signs over the Earth Kingdom's claims, and then it's approximately twelve decades of speeches, none of which, thankfully, Jet has to make. He's perfectly happy to go be a private fucking citizen now that adults who should, theoretically, know how to not be awful are, theoretically, in charge.

He practically rips his shirt off when they all get to the little tea shop Uncle has found. Jin tosses a nice, light robe at him and he curls up in it while Sokka helps Zuko pull off the second to last of the layers and Yue sits in Jet's usual spot. Jet sits next to her. 

“You and Sokka didn't waste any time, huh?” he says.

Yue grins. “Legally, as consorts,” she begins, but then Suki flops down hard onto the chair next to her.

“She and Sokka just really enjoy jerkbending.” She hands Yue a large mug. “And she knows better than to start up that ridiculous line of succession crap.”

“Just because my radical antimonarchist Fire Lord husband thinks he can establish a committee to govern so he doesn't have to work doesn't mean I don't have to produce an heir.” Yue rubs her belly fondly. “Pretty soon, these two will be fighting over who gets to be chief.”

Uncle chuckles as he brings another tray of tea in, Jee following behind him and talking about some obscure point of ship design with Bato. “Please try to prevent that, Yue,” Uncle says. “The last thing we need is another succession crisis.”

Aang shudders theatrically and sips his own tea. “No more succession crisises. One is the limit.”

“Yue, I love you, and I love Sokka Junior and The Water Tribe Boomeranginator, but if any of my children start a war, I _will_ feed them to Appa,” Sokka says, sinking down into a seat across the Pai Sho table from Jin.

“We are not naming either of those kids either of those things,” Yue, Zuko, and Suki all say at once, in a practiced synchrony that suggests it is very, very far from the first time.

“So how is the rule-by-committee thing going?” Jin asks, starting to set up the Pai Sho table.

Zuko groans heavily. “My _illustrious predecessors_ managed to convince the whole Fire Nation that all powerful people must be good because the spirits reward good people with power, so right now we have a problem with people who don't care about being giant assholes worming their way into power and everyone assuming they can't be assholes because they're powerful.” He _chugs_ from a mug of tea that's been sitting on the table since they came in. That probably explains why it's been there for so long, and now Jet wonders who knows Zuko well enough to make sure he had chuggably cool tea. 

Then again, Hakoda pops a bit of wheat into Jet's mouth as he comes in, on his way to join up with Bato and Jee, so maybe everyone here just understands and loves each other. “You could,” Jet says around his mouth-wheat, “have me, Jin, Longshot, Smellerbee, and Toph come over and quietly murder all your assholes.”

“Funny, that's almost exactly what Azula said last time I visited her on Ember Island,” Zuko says. “Mai says she'd love to teach you knife-throwing, by the way, Smellerbee.”

Smellerbee gets the Dangerous Smile and starts talking rapid-fire with Toph, who grins wider and wider by the moment.

+

Aang leans back against Katara's legs as she sits next to Chief Hakoda. Jin is absolutely _destroying_ Sokka at Pai Sho, largely because, about an hour ago, they switched to Western Air Temple rules, and Sokka hasn't figured those out yet. Teo and his soulmates arrived about half an hour after that, so now they're trying to impress Suki's Kyoshi Warrior team with wheelchair tricks. Teo has already fallen over twice, and is therefore giggling happily, but Aang takes his eyes off all those spectacles when Shang arrives in his Air Nomad clothes, grinning brightly. 

He's stopped flinching every time something brushes the tattoos, which is nice. Aang took almost a month to stop when he got his.

Katara pats the top of Aang's head to let him know she's seen Shang's arrival, and Aang jumps up to go talk to him.

“Hello, Avatar,” Shang says.

Aang follows him out to the balcony. Uncle's favorite Cranefish Town tea shop isn't as nice as Yeso's Lotus was, but it does have a better view. Shang watches the ocean for a moment before he speaks. “Guru Pathik left last week. He said something about living on the bottom of the sea, but that may have been metaphorical.” He pulls a wooden amulet from a fold of his robes, and Momo snatches it before Aang can. It looks like the same sort of amulet that Monk Gyatso wore. “He left that for you.”

Aang takes the amulet gently from Momo, and inspects it. The symbol of the Air Nomads is inked carefully on one side, but on the other side, all four nations' symbols surround a new one, the simple seal for Jet and Jin's new republic. Aang settles it over his neck and asks “did he say anything about Azula's request?”

Shang nods. “He said that if you have the power to grant it, then you must have the power to decide, too.”

“I was kind of hoping not to decide,” Aang says.

“He said you'd say that,” Shang chuckles. The laughter sets Aang off, too, and they both giggle for a while.

“I don't think I should,” Aang says. “I mean, I'm going to give her firebending back eventually, but it doesn't seem like she and Mai need to be soulmates in order to love each other.”

Shang nods. “That's probably wise,” he says. He waits for a while, while the lowering sun paints the shoreline orange, then adds “but it seems like every time someone learns how to do something new, they have to use it before long. If you're going to have to bend someone's soulmate bond eventually, shouldn't you practice?”

Aang shakes his head. “When we started out from the South Pole, Katara and Sokka wanted me to learn fast, and get powerful fast, but... it wasn't power that ended the war. Ozai didn't die because Smellerbee was more powerful than him. He died because he was too arrogant and twisted to do the right thing. Azula wasn't defeated because I unlocked the Avatar State. She was defeated because Mai and Zuko loved her too much to let her die. Maybe what the dragons taught me about energy and bending and fate and souls is gonna be something I need to use some day. Maybe. But I don't think my job is to use power to make the world do what I want.”

+

The first thing Katara remembers clearly is her brother's hand. She thinks about that sometimes, the way he used to stroke the top of her head when he was anxious, small child hands tracing the shape of her arrow, small furrowed brow always concentrating on how to protect her. 

Back then, they lived in a world that was at once magical and mundane, where brothers would wake up with little burns and fathers were people who went out and practiced fighting because that was just what fathers did. Sokka was always there, and Dad was always there, and Mom was always there, and Bato was always there, and Gran Gran was always there, and then one day they started to vanish, one by one. 

But Sokka was the last. Katara has fought for what seems like her whole life to keep Sokka, and she thinks, some days, that if she ever did lose those hands, she would never recover. Right now, he moves a Pai Sho piece across the board, and his face falls dramatically as Jin springs her trap, and everyone laughs. Aang comes back into the cafe next to Shang, and sits down at Katara's feet again. 

Dad vanished, a long time ago, but now he sits next to her, and he holds her hand. Bato scratches gently at the top of her head. Across the room, Jet laughs with Uncle and Jee over a joke that is probably utterly filthy. Yue and Suki talk in whispers over a sleeping Zuko, Toph and Smellerbee openly and cheerfully cheat Longshot in a dice game, and the world is, right now, just fine.

Maybe it's not the kind of magic it was when she was small. Maybe brothers burn for a reason and she can't be cold forever and mothers die and fathers go away, and maybe the world is bigger and darker and needs more care and help than she ever used to think.

And maybe that's okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of the series! There will likely be more, but only as oneshots that aren't in the main continuity.


End file.
